marketing

Over the past two years, I’ve noticed that many professional photographers have abandoned their blogs in favour of using Twitter. While Twitter may be more fun, more immediate, and faster and easier to do, it makes little business sense for a commercial or corporate photographer.

While there’s nothing wrong with using Twitter for personal activities or in conjunction with a blog, it doesn’t seem to benefit a professional photographer enough to warrant leaving their blog behind.

Unlike Twitter, a photographer’s blog has (or should have) more thought invested, is better indexed by search engines, holds long lasting value, is a deeper source of information and is much better at building trust and credibility.

When a company is deciding on which corporate photographer to hire, do you think they’re influenced more by a blog post or a bunch of tweets? Which better enhances a photographer’s reputation, a blog post or a few tweets?

For a professional photographer, the marketing value of a blog (aka content marketing) is huge compared to Twitter because of a blog’s capability for search engine optimization. A blog can be worth many thousands of dollars per month to a commercial photographer.

Although having said all that, as more photographers abandon blogging, the better it gets for those who stay with it.

When marketing their business, many photographers will talk about their camera equipment. On their web site, some photographers list the makes and models of all their gear. Some even display pictures of their camera equipment. Why?

When shopping for a contractor to renovate your kitchen, do you care what brand of tools they own? When your car needs servicing, do you ask the mechanic what brand of tools they use? At a restaurant, do you check what brand of kitchen appliances they have?

Customers don’t care about the brand of camera equipment that a photographer uses. They do not care nor should they.
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