This is Aaron Hockley's third guest blog post. Aaron is a professional photographer and writer who tweets too much and blogs a few times each week. His professional work finds him working with businesses for events, publicity, and editorial work; he also creates abstract and travel photos for leisure. In addition to photography for clients Aaron often works with other photographers to help them understand and refine their online and social media presence. Read Aaron's first blog post here. And, his second post here.

How's your social media life today?

Have you Tweeted? Pinned? Instagrammed?

What about LinkedIn? Facebook? Flickr?

Feeling overwhelmed? You're not alone. There are a lot of social networks and social media outlets that compete for our time as photographers. One could probably easily fill an eight-hour workday with nothing but online social media activities. That wouldn't leave time for actually making or editing any photos!

How do you decide where to spend your effort with social networking? I think you can make those decisions based on three factors, and one of them is a bit of a cheat.

1) Where Are Your Clients (or Fans)?

When we look at social media marketing or social networking from the aspect of trying to grow one's photography business, the online world is no different than the offline world. If you're engaged in offline advertising, mailers, networking, or other marketing efforts, you're (hopefully) targeting your audience. If you're trying to sell your senior portrait services, you're targeting high school juniors and seniors rather than sending a mass-mailer to everyone in your city. The same principles should apply online.

Identify your ideal clients. We already mentioned high school seniors if that's what you do. If you photograph weddings, you're looking for brides and can make some generalizations about their age and, depending on your positioning, income levels. How many wedding planning boards are there on Pinterest? Thousands? Millions? If I shot weddings I'd be all over that. Do you make fine art landscape images? Odds are that you know something about your typical buyer. If you're a commercial shooter, you probably want to connect with marketing folks, agencies, art directors, and the like.

Figure out where those clients live online. For high school seniors, right now the buzz is that Twitter and Instagram are the most popular networks. Corporate types are found on LinkedIn and increasingly on Twitter. If you want to find brides, Facebook is a good place to be and to connect with others in that segment. I'm seeing a fair amount of discussion on Google+ that involves folks willing to buy fine art prints and books.

2) Where Are Industry Connections?

Building relationships with clients (both existing and potential) is one aspect of social networking, but the other big area that can benefit photographers is connecting with industry professionals. Developing connections with other photographers, manufacturers of photo equipment, and vendor partners can have various benefits to your photography. In some cases, “it's who you know” can lead to referrals. Perhaps getting to know other industry folks can lead to publicity or an “in” with a gear manufacturer. Maybe you just want to bounce ideas or problems off of someone who has been in a similar situation.

Right now, I'm making the most connections with other photographers and industry folks on Google+.

3) Do You Just Want to Have Fun?

If your purpose in social networking is purely to have fun, then heck, do whatever you want … but don't complain that you're not getting business results if you're not making social media choices based on business criteria.

So … Where Do You Go?

There's not a single right answer. I've given you some ideas above, but ultimately you need to look at your business and figure out what makes sense for you. You don't have to be everywhere, on every social media channel. You can't be everywhere. It's okay to ignore a social network that isn't relevant for your business or area of interest. Trying to reach retail photographer customers? They're not likely to book you via LinkedIn. You probably won't pick up a corporate job via your Instagram images. Look at what you do, where you want to be, and where your clients and partners are hanging out. Be there, and don't feel bad about about ignoring other places.

Bryan Carporicci dives into three influencing factors when it comes to pricing your photography. If you have read his first article on pricing, you are in for a treat again. He co-wrote a book for photographers with fellow photographer Robert Nowell called “Pricing for Profit.”

In the book I co-wrote with Robert Nowell, titled “Pricing for Profit”, we share our belief in the idea of calculating your prices based on Cost of Sales. Certainly this is the best starting point, but there are other factors that must be considered when calculating your prices, most importantly quality, perceived value and confidence.

Quality

The quality and artistic measure of your work will have a healthy influence on how you can price your photography. In order to sell something to someone, you have to provide a quality of service or product that the client couldn’t produce on their own. If your photography resembles the basic snapshot-style of images that anyone could take with their own point-and-shoot camera, chances are you cannot charge anything in the neighborhood of what we are suggesting. If, on the other hand, your photographs exhibit a quality of light, posing and finesse that makes your work stand above the competition, then you certainly can demand a premium for your creative fees.

Perceived Value

We have all heard the saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and this is true of the professional photography industry. The way that a client perceives a product or service is directly related to the price that they are willing to pay for it. People buy things not necessarily for the thing itself, but rather for the way that the thing makes them feel. This has been proven to be true time and time again in all kinds of business environments.
Perceived value can come from things such as how we package the goods that we deliver our clients, to the length that we will go to to provide exceptional customer service. If you create a higher perceived value for your photography and your products, then you can demand a higher price for those products and services.

Confidence

Confidence is a photographer’s ability to sell him or herself and his or her products or services without any hesitation or apology. It is especially important for starting out photographers, to disassociate themselves from their own price list. We have often heard photographers saying that they would never buy photography at the prices that they themselves charge. As a result of that thinking, they find it extremely difficult to sell to others when they don’t believe in their own pricing system.

You need to be confident and sure of your pricing structure, and you need to present it in such a way that instills confidence in your client. If you don’t believe that they will buy, it is likely that they will sense that. If you don’t believe that what your selling is worth the price you’re charging, they will see that as well. This is why it is important to be extremely confident in the prices that you are asking for your photography.

Next week, I’ll be going into detail about the last “influencing factor” for pricing – the Cost of Sales model. This is the only measurable way to calculate your pricing, and it’s where things start to get fun!

How do you arrive at your photography pricing? What factors do you use to arrive at your numbers? Discuss below!

Anne Ruthmann is a wedding & lifestyle photographer in Boston, MA. She spent 10 years practicing marketing & management in corporate and non-profit businesses before pursuing her passion for photography in 2004 as an independent small business. She is a regular contributor to PhotoLovecat.com and loves helping others find creative and smarter solutions to business problems. Follow her on Twitter to see her daily adventures and thoughts.

You went to WPPI, you saw lots of awesome speakers and products, but now what?! Here are some step-by-step tips for implementing what you gained at WPPI (or other photography conferences). Start with paper, sticky notes, or an electronic document that makes it easy to move ideas around on a page.

1. Create Top 5 Action List

List the top 5 actions you want to take in your photography and/or business this year. It's critical to build this list from your memory and capture your top 5 action items without influence from any other factors. The 5 most important things for you will already be on the top of your mind and looking at materials will only remind you of less important things you might want to do.

2. Create Awesome Ideas List

List everything else you learned or thought was a great idea. List as much as you can- fill pages upon pages if you need to- the key is to get all of those awesome ideas buzzing in your head out on to a page so you can physically organize them outside of your brain. This is where you can pour through your notes and brochures if you'd like in order to recapture ideas you forgot about. Reflecting on everything you experienced and putting it into a tangible medium is a critical step in learning and moving beyond ideas floating in your mind.

3. Map Ideas onto Actions

For each of your Top 5 Actions – find Awesome Ideas that support those actions, and list the supporting ideas under each action. For example, if one of your Actions is: “Start Selling Albums”, look for ideas related to albums: brochures from album companies you like, sales ideas you heard in a seminar, designers you might be able to work with, album software that could help you, etc. Do this for each of your Top 5 Actions.

4. Eliminate The Waste

Even though you probably picked up a TON of awesome ideas at WPPI, you really need to let go of things that you can't take action on in the next couple of months. Get rid of any brochures that don't relate to your top 5 action items. You still have your written list where all of the awesome ideas are stored and you can return to them at any time, but there's no need to keep clutter around that isn't going to be immediately useful. There's always next year or the year afterward, and by that time, there may be even better ideas out there that will blow away any ideas you captured this year.

5. Schedule Time to Take Action

Block out time in your calendar to implement your action items. Maybe you create one day a week to focus on them, maybe you set aside an hour each day. Whatever you do- put it in your calendar with an alert or reminder so that you aren't filling that time with less important things, like social media, when you could be creating action that directly benefits you and your clients.

6. Prioritize Actions for Importance

Decide which action is most important to begin moving on immediately, versus what can wait a few weeks. This will help you focus and invest your time wisely toward completing actions that are most critical to your photography business. Put your prioritized Top 5 Action List in a place where you will see it every day, so that even as you get in the thick of your business, you have a regular reminder of what you need to do in order to move to the next level.

7. Connect With Helpful People

Once you start taking action on your items, you'll inevitably want some help figuring things out or getting feedback on what works and doesn't work. If you don't already have a network of people near you that you can bounce ideas off of, search Facebook for Groups titled “[Major City or State] Photographers” – there's a good chance someone has already created a group on Facebook where you can connect with other photographers near you. Make sure you have your website displayed in your profile in case moderation is required to join the group.

If you liked this post by Anne, you should read the wildly popular one she wrote for Tiffinbox called “6 Reasons Why Photographers Suck At Business.”

Yep, sound off below! Anne and I want to hear from you in the comments section below.

Today's guest post is by Bryan Caporicci, a professional photographer based in Canada. Bryan has quickly become an educator on various topics and has been a keynote speaker at numerous workshops and seminars. He co-wrote a book for photographers with fellow photographer Robert Nowell called “Pricing for Profit.” He is also a featured blogger for the Huffington Post.

If you are new to photography, it may surprise you to know that the time you spend running a photography business will be taken up mostly by business and less by photography. If you have been running a photography business for a while, I think that you’ll agree to this fact.

The vast majority of us get into photography because we are creative and visual. Those that are able to make their business flourish however, realize early on that they need to have a strong understanding of business in order to make their career successful.

Photographers are unique in the sense that we almost start our business backwards. The majority of successful businesses are founded by people who studied business first and then decided what they were going to sell second. For example, how many accountants do you know who decided one day “I’m good with numbers” and started their own accounting firm? Most accountants will go through extensive training and internships before they even considering starting their own company. With photography though, most don’t have formal business training, marketing experience, or a financial background. We just know that we love photography and want to do it full-time.

There are an unlimited number of resources on the topics of photography and business (this blog included), however in doing some research, I’ve been unable to find a definitive guide that clearly outlines a step-by-step process to pricing photography services and products. In addition, I’ve never found a resource that actually spelled out how to plan and organize your photography business volume.

In an attempt to help photographers take their business to the next level and start making a living from photography, Robert Nowell and I wrote a book called “Pricing for Profit” that was modeled after our popular seminar series with the same title.

While nothing will replace the value of formal education, extensive research, continuing education courses, business workshops, and so on, our book is designed to be a means of taking the mystery out of pricing your photography for a profitable bottom line.

For the next 4 weeks, join me as I share some insight into the concepts behind our book here on Tiffinbox and help you uncover the most efficient way to price your photography work to make a viable living.

Stick around – it’s going to be a wild ride!

More about Bryan Caporicci: Since his start in the industry eight years ago, Bryan has rocketed to the top of the photography industry in his market area. Bryan was one of the youngest photographers in Canada to receive his Craftsman of Photographic Arts and in 2012, he was named one of the top 25 most inspiration wedding photographers by Wedding Bells Magazine. Bryan's photographic philosophy is simple – he believes in photographing people being themselves. He believes in genuine, pure and simple imagery and he feels that photography is best enjoyed only once it's printed.

I have to admit, the word “stupid” in our house, with two young ones, is a “bad” word. Anytime the kids have a spat between each other, that word “stupid,” pops up and of course they get admonished.

So, I was a little nervous showing Richie Norton's book off to my sons, who now knowing how to read, were blushing at the title of the “Advance Reader's Edition” that I had just received from publisher.

I hadn't read 10 pages of this new book, when my friend Josh Solar who is friends with the Norton's, offered to introduce me to Richie Norton. Richie is now based in Arizona, where he is finishing his MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management.

I couldn't pass up the chance to discuss with Richie, his book and other topics relating to setting personal goals, the life of an artist, what get's in the way of our making decisions and well, things I think you will find interesting.

So, here we are talking over a somewhat spotty Skype connection (so please bear with us if the audio or video cuts out a bit):

After I stopped recording, I couldn't help but continue discussing some of these topics with Richie. At one point, Richie suggested that I tell you about a chapter deep in his book about “Authenticity.” In it, he said, he interviewed photographers Michael Colon and Jonathan Canlas. I have another 100 pages to go before I get to that chapter but if the front of the book is any indication, I'll get there quite quickly.

Richie's writing style is elegant and simple. No jargon being tossed at me and most definitely no psychobabble. I told Richie that it was as if a friend was reading the book to me. It's also peppered with examples to inspire and remind one that there have been a slew of people in the past and present who have been told that their idea has been “stupid” but have excelled at it. Is it a feel-good book? Perhaps. But I also think it is a practical book, without it being overly pedantic. Richie is clear on this from the get go – you may have ideas, but if you don't jump in and put in the work, those will remain only as ideas. Perhaps when I finish the book, I'll come back here and review it more thoroughly.

Richie Norton's book, The Power of Starting Something Stupid, comes out today – March 5, 2013.

Order your copy from Amazon or other more local bookstores of your choice.

If you read it, please come back here and tell us about it. Your comments and questions are always welcome. By the way, I am up to Chapter 3 now.