He is a wedding photographer and educator based in Derry, Northern Ireland who has just launched a series of video courses for photographers called ENGAGE.

Donal Doherty has a vision. And that vision is to help as many photographers as he can with all that he knows about running a successful photography business.

Talk to the man and he is terribly humble about it. He shuffles through a slew of recent awards quickly, not making a very big deal about them. His focus is on what he can do, based on all that he learned in the PR world, to help photographers who struggle to run just “ok” businesses to running great ones. While he does offer mentoring sessions and he speaks often at industry events and writes a popular column for a UK based photography magazine, his busy wedding photography schedule keeps him from going all-in. That is, until he decided to invest a good deal of his own time to create ENGAGE.

If you are starting a photography business, branding one or need help with social media marketing, I recommend you check out Donal's newest offering.

Donal also launched an ebook called, “Engage: Social Media Marketing for Photographers.” Go to the website and sign up to receive your first chapter for free.

Still intrigued? I was. So, I sat down with Donal to chat about this new launch and why photographers like you should pay attention.

Check out some of his award-winning work here:

For about $150 a year … yes, a year … you receive nearly 30 videos that are between 10 and 15 minutes in length that explain the many facets of growing a business with a plan, branding it properly and then marketing it via social media.

Every two weeks, starting today through February 2nd, Donal will release each of The Business Plan Course videos to you. The Branding Course and The Social Media Course will follow.

Donal's intent isn't to just load you up with a whole bunch of content. There is enough of that already in the market. The reason each of the videos is released gradually is to give you a chance to watch the video and then implement what he has taught you to see results. I think this is what makes Engage so different. The emphasis is as much on the process as the results, which you will need to adjust because everyone's approach to business is different.

How will you fully engage with your photography business this year?

When I heard fashion photographer Craig LaMere was going to speak and present a workshop in Connecticut, I raced back to Facebook and pinged him again to see if this time we could get together to chat about what he does so well – portrait photography. He graciously spent a little over 30 minutes answering all my questions. Check out that chat right below:

If you live near Connecticut (looking at you photographers in New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and even New Jersey), mark September 22 on your calendar as THE day Craig LaMere will be hosted by the CTPPA (Connecticut Professional Photographers Association).

Craig will entertain and educate you for the whole day with a mix of fashion driven portraiture, lighting patterns and he will also show you the post processing workflow that makes his life easy.

For more details go here. Yes, you can register for it and you don't have to be a CTPPA member (though prices may be higher if you aren't). Those of us who are CTPPA members receive day-long presentation as a part of our membership. The workshop for you folks (and there are only 14 spots left now) is $100 if you are a CTPPA member.

Learn more about Craig LaMere here. Find Craig LaMere on Facebook here. Below are a few recent images from him. Want to see more? Check out his website.

Go ahead and let loose the confetti. This is going to be an incredible presentation and workshop and I am looking forward to it! Will you join me in welcoming Craig LaMere to Connecticut on September 22nd? Sound off below!

For the last three years, I've announced and honored three truly amazing photographers who are also remarkable teachers. The previous Tiffinbox Award winners are: David duChemin, Spencer Lum and Jamie Swanson.

This year is no different. I've followed and learned from Jenika McDavitt's wonderful blog, Psychology for Photographers, as have thousands of you. Her blog posts are one reason I chose her to win this year's Annual Tiffinbox Award. If you don't know about her blog, I urge you to go check it out now. Yes, right now.

Ok, now that you are back … I have to tell you the other reasons Jenika rocks it hard in this tough business.

She has distinguished herself by creating two amazing resources for photographers – Irresistible Words (for those of us who dread writing copy for our websites or blogs) and From Portfolio to Profit Engine: How to Build an Absolutely Irresistible Photography Website (Jenika walks you through the very best way to set up your website to make it useful and attractive for your clients). Jenika has bundled them both so you can buy them together.

When I conveyed my desire to honor her, Jenika immediately offered to give all of you something special in return. I truly love her generosity. So, starting at 12 pm today through 11.59 am on Monday, August 25th, you can save $30 by using the following code: TBOX30. Just click the affiliate links in this post please.

The one other resource that made me money right away was Jenika's “How Clients Make Decisions about Money” – I highly recommend this free resource because it gives you the ability to put her advice into action very quickly to see whether or not the changes make a difference. Trust me when I tell you, that when I presented my clients with a new pricing guide based on Jenika's recommendation, my numbers went up! She not only shows you how, but tells you why her advice works.

Here are some of my favorite blog posts by Jenika on her website, Psychology for Photographers:

How To Get Anyone To Keep Reading

7 Non-Money Reasons To Price Your Photography Profitably

The 7-Minute Website Writing Makeover

How To Get People To Hire YOU, Even If You Charge More

And, there are so many more articles on her site that one day I told Jenika that I could spend a few weeks just reading her blog. As I said, Jenika's teaching is useful, timely and wholly result-oriented.

I guarantee you will get something out of her website that makes absolute sense to you and your photography business. Go ahead and bookmark Psychology for Photographers today!

Google+, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Orkut … oh, forget about Orkut, that doesn't exist anymore. Phew!

But still, can you imagine posting to every single social media platform out there? When do you find time to photograph? Or, spend time with your family? You can drive yourself batty trying to be everywhere all the time. (Here is Gary Vaynerchuk's advice to master the four big platforms)

It's true, my wife thinks I am also married to my iMac and I am always sitting in front of it posting to these social media platforms at all hours of the day and night. At some point I experienced burn out. And you will too. It's a sense that all of this “work” you are doing online is really a huge waste of time.

That's just your tired brain aching for a break. And you should step away from it all. Heck Zack Arias gives himself a whole month each year (I believe it is December) when he opts out of all social media circles. And good for him. As the new year approaches, he is ready to give it a big push and has the energy for it too.

As I said, whenever I have done it, it has always felt great. But is it always necessary to give yourself a time-out? While I really haven't missed any of the platforms, there is still a very tiny portion of me that wonders if I could still be engaging with my audience and driving traffic to my site, while I am on that well-deserved break.

The easy way out when it comes to blogging, and several other well-known bloggers have already suggested it, is to simply schedule your new posts in WordPress ahead of time. This very post you are reading was written several days ago.

But that only takes care of the blogging side of the equation. What about social media? I use an application called Buffer with some success, but it requires you to load your articles and links up ahead of time and then have them appear at different times of the day on different platforms.

However, I really wanted a tool that would be in sync with my blog – posting blog posts to different platforms, at different times from the very same WordPress dashboard I was using to write and edit my content.

Thanks to Kim Doyal, I discovered that tool to be CoSchedule. I've now used it for over four weeks now and I can tell you the very reason I am posting this review is because I couldn't do without it. It's a plugin that sits below your content editing area (see screenshot below) and out of the way. It springs into action the minute you want to “Create Your First Message”. The tool is smart enough to pull in your blog post's url and set it up in a way that all you have to do is simply add your own out-going message. Interestingly, when I wrote a message that was longer than 140 characters, the system smartly told me that it couldn't send it to my Twitter feed because it was longer than Twitter allowed.

CoSchedule connects to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Tumblr. Once you register your account, you are able to create as many messages as you want and thereby schedule the same post to appear a day, three days, seven days or even a month after it publishes, so that your audience will always see it front-and-center.

So, what are the three big reasons why you should use CoSchedule for your social media marketing?

1) Being Consistent

In any business, appearing consistent adds to your credibility and speaks of your reliability. When your posts consistently and frequently appears on all the platforms, your audience (aka. your potential clients) are going to be reassured that doing business with you is going to be a-ok. In CoSchedule, you set it up once and you just move on to the next blog post. You really don't have to do much more than that.

2) Drive Traffic

I don't have to tell you how traffic from Facebook has dropped significantly. The only way more number of people are going to see your blog posts on Facebook is if you make it a point to share your links at different times of the day, allowing for a greater number of people to visit your site. CoSchedule makes this happen very easily.

3) Encourage Engagement

Whether is Twitter, Facebook or even Google+, if your audience only retweets, likes or 1+'s your posts, you aren't going to go very far. What you need is for your audience to engage with your content and in the end, engage directly with you. CoSchedule‘s interface allows you to add your own flavor to the posts, making it possible for you to ask questions or displaying a call-to-action that will help you see results.

Want to know more? Check out this two-minute video overview:

So, do you believe you will use an editorial calendar like CoSchedule for your blogging and social media marketing efforts? Sound-off below to share your opinions with me. I trust CoSchedule will save you time and make you more efficient. It does for me. That's a win-win in my book!

Doug Levy is a New England wedding photographer and a good friend who knows his way around off-camera lighting. In fact, the first few times I ran into him were at the Inspire Photo Retreats where he taught a packed room of eager photographers the art of using off-camera lighting at wedding receptions. Subsequently, he conducted his own lighting workshop, which I attended.

Listen to our conversation about Doug's start in the business and what he looks forward to the most at Inspire Photo Retreats.

Doug will be back to teach at Inspire Photo Retreats, which will be held this time in Portland, Maine, from February 9th through February 11th.

Here is a sample of Doug‘s work:

Here is a list of other speakers who will also be presenting.

Register for this amazing conference here and now.