Photography, Personality & Social Media
As a social media marketer I have found photography perhaps the best strategy in content creation. Social media has revolutionised the entire paradigm that is marketing. Success is totally content-driven - create engaging content or be damned to internet oblivion.
In studying metrics in my work in facebook marketing it is apparent that the rate of engagement with photographic content is significantly higher than it is for other forms of content, in fact many times higher. The numbers don't lie.
The salient thing is, people are inherently social creatures, so it follows that they like to click on images of people, especially people that they know or people in their extended social networks. The ability to connect with community has become more than ever a core concern for business. The best Social Media Marketing practitioners are those who understand the social dimension and who can consistently generate content with 'personality'.
How Do You Measure Success?
In facebook terms, successful engagement can be measured by the number of 'post views', 'likes', 'shares' and 'comments' on your posts. These actions tell you that people are actually engaging with your content. The more people engage with your content, the more the content is seen by other people in the news feed and mini-feed. Social media marketing is driven by the approval and interest of the audience - it is up to the marketer to create interesting and engaging content. Of course, what constitutes interesting content depends on the demographics and psychographics of your target audiences.
Personality
I manage marketing for an interesting small business called Lucia Good Gear. The shop sells vintage and retro clothing and various curios. The owner is a very friendly, flamboyant woman with strong community values. The shop is located in a bohemian inner-city suburb. As a small business with just one outlet, the target market is local people. Central to marketing this unique business is communicating the 'personality' of the owner and culture of the store.
One strategy we use to engage the local target market is to use local people as models in photoshoots.
The photoshoots themselves are a positive way of engaging people, and the photographs are popular on facebook. The use of 'normal people' as models also helps assert anti-mainstream commercialism values, that fit with the ethos of the shop. People enjoy seeing themselves and their friends in the photographs, and this builds a positive, inclusive image around the business.
More Personality
As well as the photographs, we added text content. The text served to promote the products, demonstrate Lucia's knowledge as a stylist and compliment the models themselves as characters in the neighbourhood. Adding entertaining text gave us another opportunity to communicate the personality and values of the business, and to add to the appeal of the content as a whole.
As with everything, the 'voice' used in the text must align with the 'brand'. For Lucia Good Gear, the voice I use is mildly hip and also humorous, because it fits with the personality we are trying to convey in communications.
There's a lot more to say on this topic, but I'm not going to give away all my secrets - you'll have to hire me!
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You may wish to read a rave about the photoshoots titled "Hard Work & Hilarity", check out the pictures on my website, see a slideshow with sexy music, or read the witty copy I wrote for some of the pictures.