Category Archives: Photography and Flickr
A fun, creative, and free photo project: marketing mosaic
Our photo mosaic includes images of logos, staff, work examples, and clients
I am a big fan of Big Huge Labs, which offers a number of free ways to use your online photos and create photo products. These are creative and affordable tools for marketing your business or nonprofit organization.
In your downtime, you might try making a photo mosaic of your business. It’s free and easy to make, and you can use it in a variety of ways.
A mosaic is a quick way to capture and convey the essence of your business and what makes it unique, and it’s a great way to feel good about your accomplishments.
Collect Those Photos!
Here are some examples of images could you include in your mosaic (keep in mind: each image will be cropped square) –
- Company logo (use the square version you use for social media)
- Company logos of your client
- Images of staff (working, at events)
- Images of clients and customers
- Examples of your products, or service in action
You should regularly be snapping, collecting, and uploading these images online, by the way, so if you find you don’t have enough to make a mosaic, that is your photography project for the summer!
As you select images, they will be automatically placed into the mosaic, in the order you designate. It takes some tweaking, as you go, to make a visually pleasing image (see my example, below). You are basically creating a photographic quilt of your business. Or, alternatively, a photo strip.
Like all creative acts, making a photo mosaic is relaxing and revelatory. The very act of selecting and arranging these photos about your business is a good exercise in discovering and affirming what is important to you, what you value, and what you offer.
How To Market With Mosaics
Mosaics aren’t just for fun; they also have practical applications. Here are some ways you can use the mosaic –
- Use a long strip as a blog header or email newsletter header
- Insert a square mosaic into the cover sleeve of a customizable binder or appointment calendar
- Tack one up on your bulletin board (or employee bulletin board) to make you feel good every time you look at it
- Decorate your website or blog posts
- Use it as a background for an exhibit display or banner at a conference
- Frame it and display it on your reception desk, in your restaurant, etc.
- Print on letterhead, postcards, thank you cards, or notecards
- Jazz up your annual report cover
- Upload as a Twitter background
- Include it on your Facebook Page landing “welcome” page
- Make a bunch of strips and use them in brochures
All you need to get started is this Big Huge Labs link, a computer and color printer, paper, and some online photos. You can upload your photos from your computer, or directly from your Flickr account. If you don’t already have a Flickr account, now is a good time to start.
Ask us for help, and have fun with your photo mosaic! I would love to see your results 
Photo idea for your website or blog: cherry blossoms!
Mary Fletcher Jones, Cherry Blossoms (photo by David Hyson)
I help clients put together websites, Facebook Pages, and blogs, and the number one problem I encounter is that they do not have enough good, recent photographs of themselves.
I need my clients to be a bit more vain!
For my DC area clients, I do encourage them to have their picture taken (by friends or family) near DC landmarks, when they visit them. These pictures can be great!
Today is the day to ask your friend or spouse to take a photo of you next to the cherry blossoms. It can be a lovely addition to your photography collection, and can help reinforce your brand as a DC-based company. The next few days will be snowy or rainy, so although it will be crowded, today is the day to get out there and get those shots.
If you get the right shot, you can use it on your website or blog. What says DC like cherry blossoms? The Tidal Basin is great for photos, but there’s a nice grove near the Washington Monument, close to Constitution, and even some great photo ops in Bethesda, Maryland (Kenwood Country Club) and Alexandria, Virginia (near Clydes, Mark Center), among other places in the DC metro area.
Here are some tips for getting a great shot with the cherry blossoms…
Mary Fletcher Jones with Cherry Blossoms (photo by David Hyson)
Dress the part, and keep it natural and informal. It’s going to be chilly but for your photo, you can doff your jacket or coat quickly. If you’re carrying a purse or anything, put that to the side, with your coat. Wear a simple shirt or blouse in a solid color for the best results. Try cherry-blossom complimentary colors like soft green, aqua, rose, or soft blue. Even white can work, if that works with your coloring.
Frame or crop for a head and shoulders shot, with cherry blossoms in the background. It can be harder to get monuments in the shot, too, but if you can do it, go for it!
Mary Fletcher Jones with cherry blossoms, Tidal Basin (photo by David Hyson)
Take lots of pictures! Have some fun with it. Don’t be afraid of close-ups (that’s what Photoshop is for).
Don’t pick the cherry blossoms, or even hold a fallen cherry blossom in your hand in the photo. Picking the cherry blossoms is illegal, and you don’t want to convey that you might have done something illegal! You can hold your hand lightly on a branch, if that is the look you are going for.
When smiling for the camera, relax and think of something wonderful so you will also smile with your eyes. A modeling tip: if you are displaying a toothy smile, put the tip of your tongue lightly against the back of your top teeth. I don’t know why this works, but it does! Try some different head positions, like slightly cocking it to one side, or 3/4 views.
If you are an older person (older than 35) don’t let your photographer friend shoot “up,” for example, if they are shorter than you, or downhill from you. Have them shoot from a slightly raised position, or angle the camera down. These angles will be more flattering. Or you can shoot from a straight angle, or from the side. Just don’t let someone aim the camera lens from below your chin.
Return the favor. Everyone wants photos of themselves by the cherry blossoms. Take photos of your friend, and of tourists who ask.
Most importantly: post those photos online! Tweet them, put them on your Facebook Page, blog, and website. Be sure to alt-tag them and/or caption them with your name.
All photos by David Hyson.
12 Days of Marketing Communications. Day 7: Flickr and Images
The least under-utilized marketing tool, but perhaps the most useful, are images. Do you know that when I survey the 15+ Facebook Pages I administer or help administer, images are what get the highest impressions?
Online images can help you achieve higher search engine results, and when placed on a social sharing site such as Flickr, can be linked with search engine-friendly text to help tell your company’s story.
And this year, Twitter enabled a feature that allows images to be viewed directly in the user’s Twitter dashboard, as long as you upload links from Flickr or another reputable photo sharing site. So any click-anxiety has been eradicated.
Yet, so many companies and organizations — and particularly communicators, agencies, and communications organizations! — simply do not upload sufficient numbers of photos to engage their followers and viewers.
At Fletcher Prince, we know how to get marketing results from online images. We obtained a number of media placements for three of our clients, simply by emailing targeted media with a few images. The photographs we took and uploaded to Facebook Pages in 2010 have been viewed by thousands of people.
My recommendations for 2011 are
- Audit your online image inventory. Google yourself, your company name, and your brand names, and check under “Images.” What do you see? What is missing?
- Ask Fletcher Prince to help you set up a branded Flickr page. We also offer affordable photography services.
- Carry a digital camera with you everywhere you go, but especially to each industry-related event.
- Get in the habit of regularly uploading images to your Facebook Page and Flickr account.
- Start using more images in your blog posts, Twitter updates, press releases, email communications, videos, and direct mail.
Your best marketing tool may be your digital camera
I hope I don’t sound like a broken record when I repeat that as a business owner or manager (especially if you are communicator), you should take your camera with you everywhere you go, take lots of photos, and post them online frequently (with the kind of permission controls that allow people to share them).
Just few things you can do with photos of your staff and business include
- Sending them to the media (they always need photos) for news and feature stories
- Fleshing out your Google Profile
- Recording short YouTube videos (most digital cameras also take video)
- Including them in videos or using them to create slideshow-style videos
- Creating Facebook Page albums
- Including them on your blog, email newsletter, and website
- Including them on your print materials (newsletter, brochures)
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Having a camera handy has opened a lot of doors for me. Going to an event, conference, or workshop? Take photos and email them to people you’ve met, or to the speaker. Or send them to the organizers, so they can include them in the post-event blog or newsletter. People LOVE this. I can’t tell you how many people are using my photos as their Facebook and LinkedIn profile photos! Plus, it is a fantastic way to remember people’s names.
If you haven’t used a digital camera very much, I can tell you it’s worth learning how. Here’s a short video in which I review my favorite, and share some tips for getting the most out of your digital camera and your online photos.
Image is everything (Tribulations of Headshot Photography)
I was recently asked to speak at a conference and I have to submit a head shot. (I am so excited about that by the way, but that is another post.) I have headshots, of course, but they are all old (and sadly, many pounds ago). And I have kabillions of photos of myself, but not one that I really felt said: take this woman extremely seriously; she knows what she’s talking about.
Fortunately, David is a professional photographer. At times like this, I feel very lucky to have David as a business partner. Who am I kidding? I feel lucky EVERY DAY to have David as a business partner! You will not meet a nicer guy.
So, David agrees; he will take my photo. I say, can we also take some photos of each other? Where we look, you know, professional? Because I have been working on that. We have lots of fun photos but very few photos of ourselves as a team. I wanted to take some of him, too, because I have never used a DSLR.
Well, I learned a lot about photography yesterday. First of all, taking a really good photo of someone is not as easy as it looks. David makes it look easy, but it is not easy at all. I discovered this when I tried to take David’s photo. Those DSLR cameras are HEAVY! And they are not foolproof. They take real know-how. I took all kinds of overexposed shots until he showed me a few tricks.
Of course, David’s shots of me were more successful, and that is really saying something. I am not super-easy to photograph. One eyelid always wants to do something the other eyelid is not on board with. I blink. And, I have a jack o’lantern smile that enchants babies but looking like a middle-aged Muppet in a head-shot is, perhaps, not a very corporate look. So I have to really work at being (or at least looking) serious. We put on some Mazzy Starr and that tamped down my natural-born frivolity a bit.
Then came the challenge of taking our photo together. As I said, I have a head like a pumpkin. Alice in Wonderland’s Queen of Hearts? We were separated at birth. So I had to stand a bit behind David because in the shots where I was in the foreground, my head looked MASSIVE
But I knew that going into it, so we quickly adjusted and came out with some good shots. So here are some of the photographs!
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- Mary Fletcher Jones enjoys teaching people how to use social media
6 ways to build online credibility for your business
Why you need to earn the trust of your customers or constituents
We live in jaded times. People have become cynical because of the companies and leaders who have lied to them. Advertising is not powerless, but it no longer holds the influential sway it once did. You have to build your case for everything you sell, with complete transparency and with reliance on third-party endorsements. During tough economic times, people are highly discerning about how they spend their money, and will gravitate to brands, products, and organizations they find trustworthy. Having a robust online presence — with images and video they can see, and content and testimonials they can read — is one of the best ways you can earn this trust.
Take steps to build the search engine optimization of your website
As people search for your company online — or keywords associated with your business — they will tend to select the top ranking search engine results, as well as companies and organizations that have many search engine results. Market researchers have also established that people place more confidence in companies that have established a social media presence, including Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn profiles and accounts. Therefore, taking steps to improve your company’s SEO is another important way to build trust in your business.
When you look like you care and are passionate about your business, people will begin to believe in you. Fortunately, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to build online credibility. But it will take planning and effort, and if you are behind the eight ball now, you do need to get started. Here are some sure-fire ways to build credibility in your brand online.
1. Take lots of photographs and post them frequently. You know how they call Missouri the “Show Me” state? In this economy, every state is the “Show Me” state. Your inventory of online photographs must include photos of every staff member, product, and service you offer. I still see websites without photographs. They will not fly. People need to see it to believe it. Post your photographs on Facebook, Google Profiles and Maps, Yelp, and Flickr.
2. Assertively collect testimonials and reviews: Credibility in this economy is everything, and there are few more effective ways to build trust in your company than with testimonials. You need to ask your past and existing clients, customers, and vendors to post testimonials for you on LinkedIn.
What lends even more credibility power to the testimonials you re-publish on your website? Photographs and real names of your endorsers and reviewers. Don’t forget, you can also collect video testimonials.
Reviews are different. You really should not solicit online reviews, such as those found on Yelp, Google, and TripAdvisor. It violates the terms of service for these platforms. However, you can encourage people to post reviews by establishing a business listing on review sites, including photographs, URL, and contact information. And once you have reviews, you can link to those reviews, including the review icon, which may encourage even more reviews. And you could always ask your repeat customers and regulars for endorsements or video testimonials.
3. Produce YouTube video: 25% of search is processing through YouTube. In search results, people tend to click on links with videos more than those without - even if the video link is ranked lower. And there is no better way to tell your story, or earn trust with your target audience, than to make your case “in person’’ Video is no longer an option; it is a requirement if you are serious about marketing your business or nonprofit organization.
Are you worried about production quality? You should strive for a decent level of production quality, yes. You should use a great camera, and proper lighting and microphones. Or, hire a company like Fletcher Prince to produce affordable videos for you. But don’t over think it and delay. Marketers are discovering that consumers actually tend to place slightly more trust in brands that have videos that appear to be inexpensively produced. That is one reason why major brands who can afford to create the best quality video (such as Doritos and Heinz) have relied on consumer productions to promote their brands. It may not pay to be too slick these days.
4. Start blogging: Search engines love blogs; they’re great for driving traffic back to your site. But there are other benefits. Blogs are an effective way to present your subject matter expertise, which builds trust in you and your business. They can be easily linked, shared, and fed into your social media platforms, and other people can easily share your posts on their sites. Not every blogger is lucky to receive many useful comments, but when you do receive feedback, you may find it useful.
One blogging bonus — that you don’t often hear people talking about — is that the action of formulating and shaping your thoughts into text and images, and the discipline of routinely blogging about your services, industry, and issues, will help you constantly examine and refine how you present yourself and your business. It’s just a great mental workout, which is why I recommend it for everyone. My experience with blogging is that it has helped me become more articulate and confident in client meetings, and as a speaker.
5. Comment on popular blogs and online news articles: Search engines rely on the number of inbound links you have to your website to determine if your web site is popular and reputable enough to bump to the top pages of search engine rankings. There is are two very easy and legitimate ways to create inbound links. First, link to your web site from all of your social media, YouTube videos, blog posts. Secondly, whenever you comment on blogs and online news articles about your industry, you usually have to add your name, email, and website URL. Each of those comments will link back to your site as an inbound link, and will boost your rankings. So, it pays to express your opinion, especially on popular blogs.
Don’t believe it? I just checked my Google search engine results for blog posts for the name of my company. Between my blog posts and comments, there are more than 76,000 search engine results. Do you think I could have bought that kind of exposure? I couldn’t. It’s all from blogging and commenting.
6. Update your web site. Your web site will usually be in the top search engine results for your company name, and if you’re fortunate and strategic, for your industry. More than 80% of web users click on the first listings. The kinds of changes you should be making now? Featuring your social media links, revising copy to contain keywords (words and phrases an organization’s customers are searching for online), and adding video, photographs, and PDF files.
Now, if you’re reading this and thinking, “Sure, Mary, but easier said than done,” then you need to talk to me about creating an actionable online marketing plan for your business. That IS what we do at Fletcher Prince. You can trust that we know what we’re talking about, because we have 22 recommendations on LinkedIn and 2 video testimonials on YouTube. Now, that’s what I’m talking about! If we can do it, so can you. Visit http://www.fletcherprince.com to learn more.
Questions? Comments?
What is your experience with earning the trust of your customers? How do you think the economy affects people’s ability to develop trust in your brand? Feel free to share your insights in the comments (remember how good it will be for your SEO!)
Marketing with Photographs and Online Images
A Picture is Worth 1000 Words…
And an online image may be worth 100 more visitors to your web site! There are several other reasons why you may want to keep a camera handy.
These artfully arranged buttons communicate much about the Fletcher Prince brand
Photos have tremendous communications power. People respond to photos. They increase the appeal and understanding of your written text. They allow you to show off your products and accomplishments. They also build trust in you as a professional and in your organization, by humanizing your company. You can use photos in so many ways — in brochures, newsletters, PowerPoint presentations, and as cutaways in videos.
Sharing photos you take is a great way to foster good will for you and your company. Clients, reporters, bloggers, and membership associations are often quite grateful to have photos they can use in their own articles and newsletters.
Online photos can be very good for your SEO. When you take time to title, describe, and tag photos, all those text terms are searchable by Google. They will show up in Google under “Images” in searches for your company (or for your name, for example). And when you link photos you place online to a landing page, these online images can drive traffic to your web site or blog.
You don’t have to be an expert photographer to benefit from using photos to market your company. The important thing is to take lots of photos and to have fun with it. Here are some tips for how you can make your photos work for you — and your company or nonprofit organization.
What You Need to Get Started
You’ll need three things to get started with using online photos to market your company or organization.
- A digital camera. I have a Canon Power Shot SD780. It is palm-size, easy to use, and takes great photographs and HD video.
- A computer with an Internet connection. Any updated computer will do; I love my Apple iMac.
- A photo sharing site, such as Flickr. Photo sharing sites such as Flickr and Picasa make it possible to edit photos, and share them on social networking sites and elsewhere online.
Some Ideas for Taking Photos for Your Business or Nonprofit Organization
I believe in taking lots of photos of your staff, clients, and products. Keep a camera with you, every day, at all times, so you never miss a photo opportunity. But plan in advance to take photographs, such as these
- Photos of yourself and staff: head shots, group shots, candid shots of them at work. Let everyone know that you may be taking photos at one staff meeting, for example.
- Don’t forget to take photos of interns, volunteers, students, and vendors.
- Take photos of your clients! And photos of your employees working with clients.
- Do you sponsor organizations? Does your company volunteer in the community? Take photos.
- Pose people outside the company, or enjoying the company’s products or services.
- Of course, you’ll want to take photos of your products or services, or in the case of a nonprofit, photos of people benefiting from the services.
- Exterior of your office or headquarters; company sign.
- Take photos of your marketing collateral, or upload jpgs, such as your brochures, promotional items, postcards, and other items. Take pictures of your exhibit displays or sponsor tables.
- Your logos, in a variety of sizes and iterations
- Special events, conventions, galas, luncheons, networking events, and award ceremonies. Is someone from your company making a presentation? Take photos.
Making the Photos Interesting to View
You will want to take some standard shots, such as head shots and group shots. But you can also branch out and take some interesting shots that are in line with your brand and corporate culture. Is your brand fun and informal? One of my favorite shots of my interns was with all five of them sitting together on a sofa. Maybe your company is proud of its environmental record. So, an outdoors shot would be appropriate.
Using Landmarks in Your Photos
If your company is like most small businesses or nonprofit organizations, you probably market within a fixed geographic area, and you may have a lot of pride about where you do business, as do your clients. Use that element in your marketing! Do you live in an area with some important landmarks? For example, if you live in the Washington, DC area, posing some of y
We wanted a different look for the Fletcher Prince Interns
our executives or grouping your employees with the U.S. Capitol in the background and other DC landmarks would make a great photo. If you were in New York, you could pick other iconic settings. Try posing in front of historical landmarks or other places that your clients would recognize.
David Hyson "aerial view"
Some of the most interesting shots are those where the person is not looking at the camera. I took a photo of a group of young interns and staggered them apart, then had some of them look to the left and some of them to the right. The effect was fun and edgy, and they really liked it.
Different camera angles, such as profile and three quarter views, can be flattering and can lend all kinds of mystery to an image (what is the person looking at?). Try shooting down on your subject (you can even stand on a chair). It adds a different kind of energy.
Where to Post Your Photos Online
Using Flickr, you can download smaller versions of your photos to upload to various sites (be sure to rename the file name from a number to a literal term with keywords). Small and medium size photos work great for online purposes. Save the high-resolution versions for print work, such as brochures and post cards.
Here are some places where you can post your photos online. In many cases, you can adjust the settings so if the viewer clicks on the photo, it will go to your web site, blog, or other landing page you designate (e.g., http://www….)
- Flickr site. Be sure to tag and describe each photo.
- Blog. Each blog entry you write should have at least one image.
- Web site. Each page should have a photo, don’t you agree? From your online newsroom or About Us web page, be sure that you mention that you have high-resolution photos of staff and link to your Flickr set online.
- On your Facebook Page.
- On your Google Profile.
- On your Yelp Business Profile.
- On your Google Maps account.
- And so many more…
Here’s a tip for online photos you put on your web site: if the person in the photo is looking in one direction (e.g., not directly at the camera), position the photo (flip it, if you have to) so that person appears to be looking at the text or headline (or call to action) you want the viewer to read. People naturally follow the gaze of other people, even in photos, so you can use this human tendency to increase communication of your message. And always try to caption your photos, when you can.
Fletcher Prince Can Help You with Your “Photo Marketing”
Need some help creating your Flickr account? I can help you create a profile, and upload, categorize, describe and tag photos for optimal search engine results. Please contact me if I can assist you.
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If you found this article helpful, I would LOVE it if you would leave a comment for me! Thanks, and happy photographing!
