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Tag Archives: business
How To Create A Stock Photography Business
Sometimes we associate stock photography with some negative concepts such as the photos you see in frames that are on sale at a department store or the photo that comes in a new wallet. Sure, those images did come from a stock photography library but there is so much more to stock photography than that.
You can put a lot of creative energy into building a solid stock photography library that will draw customers who need these images and like your creative eye. Really, if you think about it, stock photography is no different from doing a shoot for a customer. It’s just that you are taking the photos in advance of finding the customer and you can sell the same stock photo a multitude of times. And that last part is what makes running a stock photography service a lucrative business to operate.
The demand for stock photography is ongoing and increasing. But in the economic “model” of any marketplace, supply is as important as demand. So to compete for business you need a good, diverse supply. That means your first step in building your stock photography business is to build the “stock”. In this situation, quantity counts.
When you start entertaining customers, you want to be able to show them a strong catalog not only of many genres of stock photos but of a good variety of photos for each genre. So if the buyer is looking for floral shots, you don’t just have three or four stock photos in that category. You should have dozens for them to pick from. By building a large collection, you vastly increase your chances of making a sale with each customer you entertain.
Don’t think that taking stock photos takes the creativity out of the process. In fact, the opposite is true. Really great stock photography screams personality, even if it’s just an assortment of floral scenes you are taking. The buyer is looking for a photo that seems to have a story to it, that draws the eye and makes the viewer want to ponder the meaning of that photo.
Sounds a bit like art photography, doesn’t it? Well, in a way, it is. Just because you are selling the photo as part of your stock collection, doesn’t lower the artistic value of what you are doing. And if your art is going out the door to be used by a customer, it is still being seen by people who will reflect on what you are trying to say with that photo. So to you, the photographer, your artistic calling is satisfied and you have a nice chuck of change in your pocket to boot.
Along with building a strong portfolio of quality pictures of each category, make your categories as diverse as possible. View other stock collections and gather ideas for the genres they have represented and of the diversity of shots and settings they have included in their collection. You are not plagiarizing other photographers work if you are letting them inspire you to do your best work.
A good discipline to build your stock photography gallery is to take a day each week and go out and build one category of stock photos all day long. So you may do floral shots all day one week, photos of automobiles the next and pictures of college students the next.
Now don’t forget to get your releases signed if you use human subjects. Even if you just hang out on a college campus and talk students into posing for stock photos. Be sure you pay them something for their work and get a release. In that way if their picture ends up in some very public setting because of how a customer uses it, you are protected from them coming back with their palm up wanting more.
Finally, trust your instincts on what to include in your gallery. Your artistic “eye” for what you like is probably pretty reliable and will reflect what interests your customers. Once the gallery is built, then you can go about the “business” of putting together a physical catalog to sell from. And don’t forget the option of building an online gallery to sell from. You will need some technical help to get your site up and learning how to sell from it and collect money that way. But this can be a great expansion of your successful and growing stock photography business.
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How To Draw New Customers With Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is essential if you plan to make money with an online website. This is an excellent way to become well-known online, include established customers in your activities and draw new customers to you.
Give offers that are exclusive to your followers on social media. Add in something that no one else is offering to get people to want to like your page. Try doing a contest on your social media page. You could also try offering an exclusive offer or item for your fans instead. Another thing to try is to make announcements about your business directly on your social sites. Make them exclusive to social followers.
Before developing a specific social media marketing strategy, figure out which social networking site you want to use. Each social networking site works differently, so it is important that your strategy will work with the site you pick. For instance, on Facebook you can create a poll, unlike most sites.
Try to test and experiment with new and different social media marketing techniques and opportunities. There are literally thousands of different ideas to increasing your social media presence and boosting your marketing online. If you get stuck in one simple strategy, you may be missing out on a new technique that could significantly help your business.
In your social media marketing, give prizes to your milestone likers or followers. Give away gift certificates or interesting things related to your product to your hundredth, thousandth and millionth followers. Not only will this encourage people to subscribe to your content, the winner will rave for a lifetime about how great your particular widget is.
To have the best mode of contact on social networking websites, you must be able to talk to your customers on a person to person basis. Let them know their input matters to you. When consumers recognize that they are conversing with someone who cares about them, they are more apt to trust the company.
Try to use several websites when engaging in social media marketing. You want to use multiple sites to increase your readership and help expand your business across the Internet market. Also, you may find different tools and apps, different followers, etc, by using different channels.
When you set up your Twitter account, use a background that is suitable to your business. This may take a few extra minutes but, it will give your customers a sense of who you are. Remember that it is the attention to detail that sets apart the most successful in life.
When deciding how to implement your social media marketing strategies, it is important to take into consideration the nature of your products and services. For example, if purchasing your products is something that most of your customers would prefer to keep private, then do not put Facebook-like buttons right next to the buy buttons! Eventually, someone will click it accidentally and then get angry at your business.
Keep your Facebook posts regular and consistent. People will look for new content from you when they check in on their Facebook page. If they don’t see it regularly, they’re likely to forget about you quickly. There are many businesses out there who do post regularly and those businesses are getting the attention of consumers. Make your business one of them.
Be interactive on your Facebook page. If all you ever do is post, post, and post some more, then people will get tired of you quickly. If you ask interesting questions, engage consumers in conversation, and respond to their posts, then your posts will become more appealing every time.
By using social media to market your site and business, you will slowly but surely see more customers. If your business and marketing is solid, customers will come back to you and recommend your business to their friends.
The key to being successful using social media marketing is to have excellent content. This content has to be inspiring, educational, and interesting so that your followers will want to share it. When they share your content, you and your business are being exposed to new potential followers who may also share your content and build your social media presence.
Post new content regularly. If you do not update your status at least once a week, your followers will forget that you exist. Perhaps you could post new content on the same day or at the same hour so that your followers have something to look forward to and will think about logging on to see what you have posted.
Gaining traffic is important, but it is more important that they take the step from traffic to customer. This can only be done if you create quality media and target the correct audience. Do not waste time or money trying to market to the entire online world.
How To Starting a Home Internet Business From Scratch
What is so fascinating about starting a home internet business? Is it the allure of working from home? Is it the idea that there are millions of people out there on the web?
Starting a successful home based internet business from scratch is difficult. There is no way around this fact. Now there are several things that can make this easier.
If you have lots of money to spend on adverting you can shorten the time it takes to become successful. If you have money to spend on advertising and tools to automate the process of marketing your new home internet business then you can get going even faster.
Now because we all want to get results yesterday there is a selection of tools out there geared for this mind set. Unfortunately many of these systems are very ineffective and are borderline unethical. I suggest you don’t fall into the instant results mentality.
For those that don’t have the extra money to spend on tools and advertising there are free methods of promotion. Promoting your home internet business for free might also sound attractive. Yet while you can use free advertising methods they do require time.
There really is no way around making some kind of investment in starting your own home internet business. Just like in the real world it takes time to building a skyscraper. It takes time to build something real that will have lasting value and purpose. If you are going to put time and or money into building a home internet business then focus on building value and purpose into your business.
If you provide a valuable service people will be willing to pay for it. If you offer valuable advice people will be willing to pay for it.
So now you might be thinking, I don’t have lots of time and I don’t have lots of money, so what can I do? Ask yourself this question; if you knew that putting in say 4 or 5 hours a week for three years would let you quite your regular job and work from home would you be interested? Three years might seem like a long time but if you don’t do something different you can’t really expect different results can you?
So, take positive steps each day toward building and promoting your home internet business.
The reality is that you need to keep a long term focus. Roman empire wasn’t built in a day and neither will your home internet business empire.
That being said, you might consider combine some time with some money to speed the process some. With some tools you will be able to leverage the amount of time you do have.
For many people the internet has provided them with an excellent home business. There is no reason you should not have your own successful home internet business. It will take time and effort. But if you want to work from home then start your home internet business today.
Tips For Your Home Business
Products for your business can be obtained for free from various affiliate programs. You do not have to pay for storage of the product because this is done for you by the affiliate. Once the prospect lands on the affiliate’s page they will sell, pack, and ship the merchandise for you. Again, for free. And you are paid a commission on the sale just for leading the prospect to the affiliate’s landing page through your promotions.
Now some promotions can also be free. For instance, you can write articles with links to your site, about the products, and have them published on hundreds of directories on the internet for free. The articles act as advertisement and through the links take the prospect to your site where you, in turn, through links or banners direct the prospect to the affiliate’s landing page where the sale is made. You can also get the prospect to your page through links with other web pages or through your position in search engines. All again for free!
Another way that you can get free advertisement is by belonging to a forum where you can participate in discussions and develop relationships. Your name and site will be listed each time you make a contribution and if enough interest is developed in what you offered; BINGO, you have another person following the link to your site.
You can also develop and place a free press release on the internet every time you add a new product or launch a new site. Blogs, Newsletters, and eBooks can also act as free advertisements. And because the internet is free, their distribution is free.
Let us not overlook the fact that in order to profit from all of the free stuff that is offered you need to do your homework. You will need to examine which hosting company offers the site designs that fit your style. Study which products you are going to be comfortable with representing and promoting. Determine how much knowledge and skills you will need to possess about the products so that you can develop interesting content to draw interest and earn money.