New Year's Resolution- Grow your Modeling/Photo Career Part 1

Part of my New Years resolution includes becoming more consistent with my blog. One post a month isn't exactly what keeps readers and I'm sure there's more information I could share than what I do.

But of course the ever present issue with any person in today's world is having time. Life has this funny way of carrying us away and sometimes even with all the advantages of technology you still can't keep up.

So how does this fit into the modeling blog you're probably beginning to wonder... get ready, this is a long post.

It's about your connections...connections to friends, co-workers, prospective co-workers, employers etc. In a world of a crumbling economy big business isn't always big business. Small business owners and independents are more agile and more easily able to adjust to the changing landscape of the business world - And models, are all presidents of their own personal business and career.

So as a model (or photographer, makeup artists etc) you are the president and CEO of your own business - and you need to treat it that way. Complete with a plan, a plan that includes marketing, business development, relationship management, accounting...you get the idea.

As I'm sure you can tell I've somewhat recently had this realization myself. I've always had a somewhat loosely formulated plan for most of these things but it's not something I've really truly practiced - after all, I'm a photographer right? My job is to take pictures. Oddly enough, if you don't do any of the other above stuff - you never get to that picture taking part.

Web 2.0
If you don't already know this term...you're behind and losing more ground by the hour. You need to get on board and leverage all the power this new world of the Internet holds. So, for those of you that don't know. In it's most simplest terms Web 2.0 is boom of the social networking lifestyle (MySpace, Facebook, blogging, the interconnection of the web and wireless devices etc). People LIVE on the Internet. No matter where they are, what they're doing, the Internet is easily within reach whether on their phone or the computer.

Exposure that works for you
Web 2.0 basically has the power to connect you with almost anyone, regardless of where they are. For marketers this is key (and why you need to have a marketing plan). Traditional marketing relied on your prospect to be exposed to a medium (TV, Radio, reading a paper, magazine, passing a billboard) in order to get a marketing message if you weren't watching you didn't see it. Now with people connected to the Internet virtually 24/7 through computers, PDA's, Cell Phones etc you can hit people with your message no matter where they are - and they can consume media on their own terms. You post a bulletin on MySpace - its there when they sign in. Not like a TV or radio commercial where if you're not listening the time it airs you miss it. Take this blog for instance, if your subscribe you'll get an email with this post and you'll read it when you have time. If you're not looking at my blog page when I hit publish - you don't miss it - you just get it next time you're connected.

Facebook and MySpace: The two heavy-weights of the social networking industry aren't just a flash in the pan trend. These two sites are rapidly changing the way people (and businesses) market and connect with consumers. The principle is pretty basic when you think about it...if you have something to sell - and there's a place where millions of consumers are already gathering everyday - wouldn't it make sense to market your product there? I've read countless blogs and marketing tips that say having one and not the other isn't enough...and I'm now practicing what I'm about to preach: It's true. If you want to leverage all the power of social networking you should have a presence on both. Facebook and Myspace serve two different fundamental purposes that feed back to the same overall goal...exposure.

Blogging: Not everyone is a blogger but there's some value in the power that blogging can bring to your web presence. If you have a website, blogging helps your SEO (if you don't know what that term is look it up - far too lengthy of an explanation to list here). Blogs drive traffic to your site and vice versa. And the more people you have looking at you the more exposure you have...the more exposure you have...you get the idea. (Sidebar on SEO: Facebook Pages help with SEO as well).

Other Social Networking platforms: I can think of other things like minor social networks like hi5, or the end-user created social webs of Ning, photo social networks like Flickr, model specific networks like OMP and Model Mayhem (OMP is a site that existed well before Web 2.0 and has recently completed a large site overhaul to incorporate much of the social networking feel to their site), and other platforms like twitter.

Leverage Integration:
So the next question - and one I asked myself is: I already don't have time to formulate all these marketing, relationship management, business development plans and whatever else you listed above - how can I be expected to manage a social profile on 15 different sites?

A very valid question. As a business owner (remember you're a business owner) you have to wear many hats. The disadvantage for self represented models is often you're the sole employee of your business - nobody to share the workload with. This puts a tremendous amount of responsibility on you.

Facebook in particular allows you to integrate a variety of media channels into their site. For example my newly created Facebook profile is connected to my flickr account, this blog, and my twitter account. When I post a new blog entry here it automatically gets listed on my Facebook profile. Add pictures to Flickr, they get listed on Facebook. Facebook has a huge collection of apps to allow you to connect together YOUR social network (by that I mean all the social platforms you belong to). Facebook somewhat becomes a hub to communicate all your social outlets to your contacts. This allows you to filter all your contacts to one place instead of having twitter contacts, flickr contacts etc and everyone only getting a segment of your social stream. Plus Facebook allows you to manage much of your profile (and interacting with contacts) via cell phone so can network on the go. No integration with MySpace but for obvious reasons that's expected.

Unfortunately a strong social network presence is only a piece of the pie. Utilizing social marketing is only part of a complete marketing plan. For each person, their needs, expectations and goals that plan is different so you need to develop a plan that will work best to fit your needs.

The next post will cover another element of this whole thing.
Tips for next steps:
I'm just learning Facebook myself so I'm not going to pretend to tell people exactly how to get the most bang for their buck - I've been doing research, alot of research myself. Start with Google and do searches for Marketing on Facebook, Marketing using Facebook and Tips on Social Marketing. You'll find a host of valuable information from professionals who do this everyday, professionals I'm learning from.

If you don't a Facebook account yet get one, import your address book into it and start making connections. Same holds for MySpace. The sooner you get started the sooner you'll benefit from the rewards.

If you're big into posting pictures online check out Flickr and open an account.

My next post will address another element from the list at the top of this post...stay tuned.