In introducing yourself to the social media world, you will be faced with the challenge of balancing your self-promotional boasting (i.e., your accomplishments, your unique qualifications, your God-given [or genetically-inherited] gifts, your statement of benefits, your features and "coming attractions" --- ultimately, your call to action and reason for taking action) with at modicum of humility. As great as you are, your are still inviting (not too far removed from begging) people to become followers, customers and clients. As the US country western song says, "Oh Lord it's so hard to be humble, when you're perfect in every way."
I recently embarked upon a campaign to accomplish this Mad Marketing feat for a special client, professional commercial photographer Hong Chan, who not only runs seminars in commercial photography and special lighting effects, but who also has an enviable portfolio of award-winning stock photographs with Dreamstime, a stock photo house which has joined the ranks of iStock, Shutterstock and a host of others. Not quite Getty or Corbis, but an up-and-comer,just the same.
Here's a look at Hong Chan's opening salvo...
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I am quite hard at work putting together my new professional profile for Blogger, Dreamstime, Linked In, Twitter and to all of those other places in social media cyberspace where we can discuss commercial and stock photography collaboratively (with tips, tricks and tools for choosing more marketable subject matter as well as for creating better photographs and maximizing [promoting!] our monetization potential from our shared passion -- the magic of capturing and immortalizing special moments.
In putting together my profile, one of the greatest challenges, ironically, will be selecting a suitable portrait photograph of myself to add to it! Have any of you been faced with a similar challenge? We are all faced with analyzing and criticizing our own photographs - but the greatest problem facing a perfection-obsessed photographer is the dilemma of taking and selecting the ideal professional bio shot.
I will also endeavor to post to this blog, the Freeze Frames Fotos Blog and my Dreamstime blog at least once each week. -- HC
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For those of you who might have missed my last post to this newborn blog (which might have been untitled!), I am re-publishing it right here. Oh: And before I do, I cordially invite you to click on the buttons below to join my blogs, follow my Twitter Tweets, join my brand new network on Linked In and to take a peek at my Dreamstime portfolio [including some Editor's Choice Awards, for which I am grateful and honored] and my blog posts there, too.
Dear Friends:
I am passionate about creating greater knowledge, exposure, networking interaction and business opportunities for neophyte (enthusiastic beginners) photo hobbyists as well as more experienced photographers who are interested in sharpening their artistic skills as well as increasing their income opportunities. There can be nothing in this life as truly fulfilling as earning a comfortable living while doing what you love the very most. For more than ten years, photography has been my driving passion -- I thoroughly enjoy the challenge of creating illusions that are so believable that they actually defy the senses. As you will find out, a truly great photographer is part artist, part scientist, part inventor and part magician.
This is my professional blog [http://HongChanPhotography.blogspot.com], where you will find out about what I'm working on, some new, innovative tips and techniques, and various seminars and workshops which I offer to both hobbyists and professionals on a variety of exciting photography-related subjects. If you'd like to receive my RSS feed or my daily email updates, please just click on your choice of hyperlinks in the area immediately above this article.
There's more...
I'd also like to welcome each and all of you to the maiden voyage test post of our brand new blog, as well -- Freeze Frames Fotos, at http://FreezeFramesFotos.blogspot.com. While we are still very much a work-in- process, we expect to rapidly build a wonderful, useful and very profitable (for all participants) interactive community of fresh, emerging commercial and stock photographers, moderated by Hong Chan (that's me!), a renowned expert in commercial photography tips, tricks and techniques, and a seminar leader who has won several Dreamstime Editor's Choice Awards for his masterful stock photographs.
Some of the labels, tags, keywords, search terms, categories and topics where you'll be finding us will include: Hong Chan, Photography, stock images, Douglas E. Castle, Clip art, royalty-free images, income, monetize, self-promotion, photography blogs, social media, networking, photo art, small business trends, profitable hobbies, training, education, cooperatives, collaboratives, crowd sourcing, passive revenue, career training...and a host of others.
We hope that you will join me in our collaborative thrust to assemble an inspired, communicative group of emerging and established experts in the creation and successful marketing of our collective artistic immortality -- the stock photographic images.
Enjoy a fabulous educational, networking and passive income-producing experience. Turn your artistic passions and visions into a wonderful income and source of pride, accomplishment and joy.
Of course, membership will be absolutely free...forever.
Thank you for visiting with us! We'll be keeping you posted -- in fact, you might want to subscribe to our RSS feeds or our once-daily email updates. Just scroll up to the hyperlinks above this posting.
A truly great photograph is not merely a picture - it is a fully sensory, emotional experience captured -- frozen -- in time.
-- Hong Chan
p.s. We offer only temptations for now - we are hard at work at building both sites, as well as in polishing up our companion Twitter, LinkedIn, FaceBook and other social media network-building sites; if you belong to one, you are welcome to belong to all of them. All yours, all free.
p.p.s. I am looking forward to see what you think of my professional bio. Your opinions are invited and encouraged. I'll be showcasing it soon enough. Writing it will be a challenge (It would be easier if it could just be a slideshow of everything I've done during the course of my career, wouldn't it?), but I will be getting some help from a friendly editor to give it life and to make it tell the right story.
Hong Chan
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It requires a witch's brew of implicit bravado, subtle references to achievements, self-deprecating humor, and an offer of community and communion in order to make this early-stage miracle happen. It is a delicate balance when you are, on one hand, announcing the gift of your greatness to the world, and on the other, asking for others to come to your humble studio. Make me prove my value to Hong Chan -- click on his buttons, immediately above. If you make me look good (by making my dear client look good), I will have proven my case. You see...I'm humbling myself and asking for your support. And there you thought I was cocky.
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