Is Social Media Destroying the Art of Photography?

Last time out I wrote an article about how to boost your business with the use of Instagram and that post got me thinking recently about something all together more fundamental – that being, the art of photography. Specifically, what impact is social media having on it?

 

The Canon’s gonna get it. Finally, a real KODAK moment.

Funkychesta

Photography has always been fundamental to social media. Let’s take Facebook for a start, where in the beginning your profile picture was everything. ‘Here’s what I look like. Whaddya think?’ exclaimed a proud user’s carefully chosen avatar. (Although in most cases most people’s profile pictures should come with a disclaimer which says: Here’s what I DON’T look like. This photo took me ages to do).

But then photographs and social media took on a life of their own – people felt the need to document everything in film. So much so that a night out on the tiles almost didn’t really happen unless you woke up the next day to find you’d been tagged in 36 photos. Each one as similar and vapid as the other.

And there’s my point: photographs used to be something to cherish.  A good piece of photography even more so. It seems people are no longer buying photo albums to house pictures of their children cross dressing because they want to ‘be a girl when they grow up.’ What next? Will parents be unable to embarrass their children by showing them photographs of them aged four dressed in drag? I certainly hope not.

And - what about bona fide photographers? Now, with Instagram, photography has become the actual medium of social communication. What’s more, Joe Bloggs has convinced himself photography is easy. Just take a photo, set it in sepia, blur a few bits here and there and whack on an edgy border. 58 likes? Why, you’re a modern day Ansel Adams.

You certainly are not.

But let’s rein it in a bit: social media won’t destroy the art of photography. But for me, social media isdamaging my attitudes towards photographs. As I’ve said, the market is saturated with crappy photographs. And photographers are in agreement that social media is encouraging lazy photography. The ones I asked all said that the only defining aspect of an Instagram photograph is that it is an Instagram photograph. But do we need better policy makers? Or a better electorate? I’d say a combination of the two – social media needs to find a way to champion good photography and people need to upload fewer photographs of themselves stumbling home after a wet Wednesday night out.

In fact the decline in Facebook usage for example, estimated to be about to be about 8% in the last two years, could be down to this. The ‘Facebook Fatigue’ as it has been dubbed is perhaps because people are tired of the seemingly unending stream of bland, indulgent photography.

Also, is what’s happening to print photography social media’s fault? Print photography and print in general is unquestionably declining, though we can say that this is a response to the digital age in general and let social media off the hook here. However, social media as a platform means we don’t need to print things to show people our photographs. Though, I want people to print more photographs. More to the point photographs that mean something to them and not a photograph that is going to get lost amongst the 312 others in the Facebook album entitled ‘Turkey ‘09.’

It’s about now people always cite the fact that printer ink is pretty pricey and Facebook’s flipping free. This complaint is a little outdated, as places like Cartridge Shop now offer easily-affordable printer ink, but more importantly the freedom of Facebook is largely illusory. When all of your data is mined and used for advertising purposes, you're actually giving away rather a lot of privacy for this 'free' service.

So at the end of this long, admittedly self-indulgent, rant about social media and photography in general I want to know what people think. Is merely the platform that social media provides photography a good thing? Or do I sound like an old fart and you wouldn’t be surprised if my next three words were the phrase: back in my day...

Do let me know in the comments!

keywords: Social Media, facebook, Instagram, photography

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Is Instagram Facebook's Savior?

#NotImpressed? The numbers show McKayla Maroney's fans feel that way about Facebook

When Facebook paid a billion dollars for Instagram last April, the company knew exactly what it was doing. But did it envision the acquisition potentially saving its $75+ billion dollar empire?

Yes, that Instagram, now with more daily active users than Twitter. It's the best move Facebook has made since George W. Bush was in the White House. (2008.)

There is a method to the madness that was Facebook’s many changes over the last 24 months. Madness brought forth a revenue model that actually works, endless amounts of user data, and shareholders to answer to. The madness has also tarnished -- perhaps permanently -- the 'cool' factor that was its principle upon launch in 2004. What's lacking now, nine years later, is a true identity, especially when compared to its direct competition.  Twitter has become television’s ‘second screen,’ Pinterest works seamlessly with online retail, YouTube has changed the way we consume video and ditto for Instagram with photography.

By the sheer numbers, Facebook is still VERY healthy, reaching more than a billion unique active users each month. Companies are also lining up to purchase coveted 'sponsored posts,' placing themselves next to friends, family, Taylor Swift and the Detroit Red Wings on a more consistent basis. But dig a little deeper, and one wonders if those users are actually there anymore, or if they've moved elsewhere...like to Instagram. 

For example:

• Olympic gynmast Aly Raisman has 399,000 followers on Instagram. Her Facebook page has only 130,000 'Likes.'
• McKayla "#notimpressed" Maroney has almost 560,000 followers on Instagram. Her Facebook page only has 206,457 'Likes.' She also has 110,700 followers on Keek, a video platform that's in competition with Twitter's new Vine player. 
• Kendall Jenner has 5.1 million followers on Twitter, 4.8 million followers on Instagram and just 1.5 million ‘Likes’ on Facebook. She also has 1.2 million followers on Keek.

Throw in those coveted 'user engagement' statistics and the numbers are even more skewed against Facebook.

• Maroney posted a selfie on St. Patrick’s Day that received 36,375 ‘Likes’ on Instagram. Her Facebook fan page only received 7,700 total engagements for the week. 
• Victoria’s Secret PINK posted a picture of a shamrock themed thong to its social networks on St. Patrick’s Day. On Facebook, where the brand has 13 million followers, the post received nearly 24,000 ‘Likes’ and 330 comments. On Instagram, where PINK only has 622,000 followers? 33,200 ‘Likes’ and 528 comments.
• Getting out of the tween trend, the San Francisco Giants have 195,000 followers on Instagram compared to 1.667 million on Facebook. Yet, from an interaction standpoint, the smaller site consistently outperforms the much-larger father-company.
• And when the New York Jets signed David Garrard to compete with Mark Sanchez and Tim Tebow for the quarterback position, the announcement yieled 3,493 ‘Likes’ on Facebook … and 3,358 on Instagram. The Jets have 1.5 million fans on Facebook and only 56,000 on Facebook's billion dollar investment. 

Why is this happening?

• In the case of the Giants, EdgeRank has driven the team’s Facebook impressions (Up to 16 percent of its total audience) to be on-par with its much smaller Instagram account.
• Then there is Facebook mobile layout, which has been unfriendly to a rapidly growing consumer base. This is one of the key reasons why the company introduced a fresh look to the News Feedearlier this month.  
• The biggest concern may be the demographics. Facebook used to be an exclusive, college-only site that you felt cool to be on. Now the cool kids, the McKayla Maroney's, Aly Raisman's and Kendall Jenner's of the world are elsewhere ... and they've taken their fans with them.

In Facebook's case, they just simply shifted from one of their social platforms to another. Who knows what the empire might have looked like if that weren't the case?

Keywords: Research, Strategy, Metrics, Community Management, facebook, Instagram, social networks, social strategy

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Socially Stephanie: Social Media for Catering Company

Dear Socially Stephanie,

I run a small artisanal catering company in Fresno. Besides our catering business we also sell packaged goods.  

I come from the restaurant industry and have some contacts. I also know that food works extremely well on social media, but since our business is fairly new, I am having trouble getting it off the ground.  I share our business information on my personal Facebook page, but other than that I'm lost. 

How can I get my company in front of more people?  While we are located in Fresno, we ship around the country.  

Foodie in Fresno

 

Dear Foodie in Fresno, 

Congratulations on your venture.  I'm a huge fan of eating -- just ask any of my friends or my husband, for that matter.  Honestly, nothing excites me more than a homemade creation of delectable goodness!  Your market is out there.

Now, for the bad news.  You've already committed a sin in the social media world.  It's the personal page vs. fan page debate, and it's a hot one.  Using your personal page to grow your following is limited: there is a friend cap, for one, and for another thing, how will your new fans tag you in posts if they aren't your "friend"?  The first thing you want to do is get off your personal page and migrate to an official fan page, then invite everyone you know.  Your real friends and family will be the first to support you in your attempt to gather a following.  Leverage them.  Secondly, I assume your company has a name that's different from your own name.  You want to start branding your company and this is the first place to do it. Go ahead -- run over to Facebook and create your fan page!

Okay, good. I'm happy you did that.  The next thing I want you to work on is your online distribution.  Luckily for you, there are a ton of different sites out there that cater to artisanal and homemade goods.  Check out sites like GoodEggs.com, which is based in the Bay Area; joyus.com, which allows you to submit video content along with your product for review; and Meylah.com, an Etsy-like platform for homemade items. 

All of these sites have built-in communities, so by getting in touch with them, getting them to love you and, lastly, getting them to feature you, you'll be taking important steps to establish your brand.

In the meantime, work on building your Instagram presence.  Food is killer on Instagram, because people love to look at photos of food. In fact, there are over 37 million photos tagged with the #food hashtag on Instagram!  Since you're already creating awesome dishes, sides, and pre-packaged goods, you have something to show.  Use the new video feature to enrapture your audience and make them want to buy your products.  Chef Roblé of Bravo fame does this very well.  He has successfully built his Instagram following to close to 100,000 fans.  He posts a lot of pictures of food which gives him a very targeted audience. 

  

Don't you just want to eat that up?  I do.  And so will your followers when you start creating mouth-watering videos.  Oh, and yeah, you can now embed pictures and videos from Instagram.  If that isn't another reason to jump on the Insta-train, I don't know what is. 

While you're in the social media game, start branding yourself on Pinterest.  Entertaining and Food are two huge categories over there, so you should find a lot of success.  Since you are a content creator (hello, you create food for a living!) you can pin your own images and edit them to link to your site from the backend of your Pinterest account.  One thing that will be very important to help brand yourself on Pinterest is creating keyword-friendly board names.  Things like "food" and "beverages" won't cut it.  Create boards that are more original and that people will search for online.  Board names like "DIY Party Ideas" or "Summer BBQ Appetizers" are going to bring your brand more value and more search traffic.  

Lastly, create a blog.  This will be particularly important for your search engine traffic but also as a way for people to share your content.  Shareable content is everything in social media. The more people who share your content, the further your exposure and reach will travel.  Share tips for hosting the ultimate dinner party, a recipe of your fan favorite dish, and ideas for presentation.  By doing so you are not only adding value but you are showcasing your expertise.  

Good luck, and happy cooking!  

Socially,
Stephanie

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Keywords: Best Practices, Facebook, Social Media Marketing, Content, Branding, Strategy, Pinterest, Marketing, Sales, Social Networks, Video, Instagram, Instagram video, Socially Stephanie 

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