Social Media building bridges
Three and a half months ago when I started my business in Phoenix, Arizona I think I was the only person in the world that believed how far I could spread my brand and my business as a photographer in such a short time. Of course I started by attending the Chamber meetings and in turn was invited to visit many other traditional networking meetings, which resulted in several coffee meeting pitches being directed my way. Luckily I ignored the sales pitches that would have me paying to get a higher google rank and stealthily avoided paying up to $3000/ year to network with exclusive groups and learn secret business advice. The Chamber has good intentions but I felt like the community aspect was missing most of the time. It was an old boys club mentality, and a heavy push marketing environment.
I intentionally focused locally because it was never my intent to build an empire. I knew from looking at the market in Phoenix I could easily compete at the highest level of photography. So I started to build my bridges not at all by traditional means. First thing I did was start this blog, then began building my network through linkedin and extensively using twitter and facebook to build bridges into the community. I started following the daily rants and raves of the Phoenix twitter community and attending events that were more social in nature and less network business card race inspired.
This is what I was looking for and how the Chamber had failed me, this was a group of people that understood the benefit in having a long conversation even if that person never bought or sold you anything. It became a requirement for me when meeting someone new to converse with them and not just hand them my card and grab theirs. I’d like to continue to differentiate between networking and bridge building because at some point the work I did became a process of resource sharing instead of resource guarding. Networking in most instances becomes an unmanageable list of resources that may buy or sell to you. A bridge for me refers to something local, immediately useful and built to facilitate two way communication.
PodCampAZ is one of the first great sucesses for my business. I found out about PodCampAZ on twitter and became involved with the planning process by just showing up and offering my services where ever I could as a volunteer. At PodCampAZ I continue to work with some of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met and after a couple weeks found them starting to use me and share me as a resource within their communities. In social media it seems that when you give a little you really do get a lot back.
Results: And I’ve just begun.
- My self published book “Phoenix 20″ is going to be in the hands of the Mayor after my book signing.
- I have a partnership with Mighty Imaging to sell prints from their art store.
- I have about 100 local contacts that follow me on twitter and most of those I would consider friends and some of them are even clients now.
- Almost any event I attend lately someone knows my name before they meet me. (and they’ve already heard good things about my photography)
- I have a community of people who comment and learn about my business by following my recent work on flickr.
- I will have a billboard of my fine arts work on display on the 202 in Chandler in partnership with oibillboards.com by the end of this week.
Social media pays. Even my wife is starting to believe.
Do you have any similar experiences or did you find social media to be a waste of time? Feel free to share with my community in the comments below.
I think social media does pay! I have been networking in the valley using on and offline social exposure techniques and I feel that it’s my connections to these communities (especially online) that has allowed me to further my career faster than conventional means. If you submerge yourself within people who enjoy being connected it’s easy to become connected yourself.
This type of connectedness and openness about who I am and what I do allows people to connect with me faster once we do meet face to face. People I meet know who I am and what I do, which allows us to cut straight to the heart of why we should communicate more (a possible job lead, a common interest, etc).
Not only can you create viable leads, you can form and keep a community of listeners. These listeners are a great group of people to have, they’re opt in instead of cold call, so you know they already want to hear what you have to say. A reminder of who you are comes to them daily, and they’re more likely to A.) remember who you are and B.) think of you when something comes along their way that may be of service to you.
I’m glad that you’re making these connections, and I think that we’re going to continue building a great connected community that will allow all of us to be successful at what we aspire to do. :)
June 9th, 2008 at 5:59 pmI fully believe in social media. I’m a photographer as well and have received numerous jobs from people viewing my flickr stream. I use myspace all the time and am constantly booking jobs from contacts on myspace.
I even recently booked a job through Yelp.com! I wrote a review of a business I really liked, someone went to that business based on my review, mentioned to the owner that she came to her based on my review and the owner said, oh yes, she’s a really good photographer, the girl did not know that, she went home, emailed me and we got a job from that!
I’m really excited to see your book! The book signing is this Saturday. I will try to make it. I enjoy meeting other local photographers. I have two wedding albums to create this weekend and some postcards to make but this might be a nice break in my day!
Every time we photograph a wedding we find out if they are on myspace or flickr or twitter and we add them and because we’re able to keep in touch with them that way, we’ve had numerous referrals!
It’s all pretty exciting!
June 10th, 2008 at 11:28 amGreat account with examples of Social Media at work. “Social Media” is really just an extension of basic tools for networking and cutting through a lot of the barriers that technology has created – like faceless web sites and impersonal email.
You used the tools to make very human connections, and that’s the core power that a lot of the social media hype seems to neglect. Best of luck with the book, and I’d love to hear more about your exploits in Social Mediasville!
June 10th, 2008 at 1:06 pmthanks for sharing me this wonderful ideas
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:31 am