The social media lie (or the truth is hard to tweet)

[gallery]Social media is a great way for marketing. Social media can help your business. Fact.
Er, no. Social media is at best fun, at worst a tedious distraction.

Now, I’m all for using twitter as information source or Facebook to look at how friends you hardly know are doing.

But the harsh reality is that if you have a product to sell or a service to offer, social media will have no impact whatsoever on your business.

Yes, you can go to conferences, seminars and training days where various organisations and business support outfits will put forward social media success stories.


But the reality is that these organisations cling to these lone ‘successes’ to advocate how brilliant social media is. The truth is different.

Nobody will come in from the cold with a commission because you have tweeted until your #hashtag has wilted. No-one will contact you with work on account of you having 1,000 Facebook lovers.

Those who have 10,000 Twitter followers are the one’s who have experienced success some other way, with social media popularity a happy consequence.

As a photographer, these are the opportunities that have come my way courtesy of social media (and other online listing sites): 


Facebook: Big fat zero
Twitter: Big fat zero
Audioboo: Big fat zero
LinkedIn: Big fat zero
JournalistDirectory.com (listing): Big fat zero
ThePhotoGroup.co.uk (photographer collaboration project): Big Fat zero
Lightstalkers.org (documentary photography listing): Big fat zero
Journalism.co.uk (listing): Big fat zero
Creative Lancashire (council-run business support): Big fat zero
The Long Lens blog: Photography-related products to review, free canvas prints, requests to contribute to other websites (unpaid)
Flickr (photo website): Dozens of requests to use images from councils, PR companies, corporate and consumer magazines – majority have been turned down due to ‘budget restraints.’*

NUJ Freelance Directory (listing): Half a dozen commissions over 15 years
Adobe Photographers Directory (listing): Big fat zero (and I’m not even sure if this is still going)

There are probably other listing sites I have graced, long-since forgotten.
*Budget restraints = we want to use your image but don’t want to pay you.

As a photographer, having a website – and not one which requires a series of mouse clicks and clicking on the cross FOR EVERY PHOTO – is crucial. But a website is pointless if you don’t actively try and push people (and I mean prospective clients) towards it.

The best way to this is by traditional marketing – business card, face-to-face meeting, direct mail, phone call and perhaps even email (but that is another discussion altogether).

Now, social media can be used as an information source for journalists, with Tweetdeck leading the way.

But ffs lol don’t go wasting your time trying to get work through a Facebook page or by producing an endless stream of tweets. Life is passing you by.

#Byebye.

NOTE: Journalist and multimedia expert David Higgerson has a very, very comprehensive list of social media tools here.

Oi ya b*st*rds you've stolen my pug picture

[gallery]At the time of writing, this photo has had 992 comments on Facebook, 1,730 likes and been shared 210 times. It’s on the Facebook page of the ASPCA, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
The ASPCA did not seek or gain permission to use the image.
Using TinEye, the reverse image search engine, I found four other websites have published the image. There are probably more out there.
For any creative, copyright is crucial. It protects their work and helps ensure they earn money from it. If a photographer (whatever their level of ability or professionalism) lets any organisation use any image for free they are an idiot photographer.
They are allowing flattery – or vanity – to cloud their judgement and they devalue the commodity of the photograph for the entire industry. If anyone would like a more in-depth discussion on this then please get in touch.

That’s not to say I am draconian about my images. I have, on occasion, allowed free use of my images for what I deem worthy causes. Indeed I have allowed this image to be used by a dog blog website in Ottawa, Canada.
What I have never done is allowed commercial businesses or similar organisations to use my images for free and, believe me, I’ve had many requests.
I allowed the dog blog to use it because they asked nicely. And the important thing is that they do ask. Nicely.
The ASPCA, along with 5minute5.com, untoldenterainment.com, yazarkafe.hurriyet.com (don’t ask) and electricgrandmother.com never asked for permission to use the image. If they found it on google, they may have had difficulty discovering the author as the embedded IPTC information has been stripped out.
But that is no excuse for a failure to reply to emails when contacted about the use of unauthorised images. I emailed all four websites, asking them to contact me about publishing this image without permission. Only 5minute5.com replied, offering an apologetic email and the offer to remove the image or credit it.
I’m particularly annoyed that the ASPCA, a reputable organisation, has not replied to my email. Too busy searching for other images to steal?
I have reported them to Facebook and have yet to see the outcome of that. Don't fail me Facebook.
I took this photo several years ago at my parent’s house in Newcastle. The pug is called Arthur. The french fries are called chips.