APPC and Social Marketing for Photographers

Social Marketing for Photographers

& the American Professional Photographers Council

  The APPC was formed in Baltimore, Maryland in the Spring of 1977 and as of this post, they are boasting just over eleven thousand members worldwide.
 Photographers of all nationalities may claim membership for the networking, support, and marketing possibilities.
 The marketing aspect is today's prime focus, Social Marketing in particular.

 As an artist you no doubt make every attempt to keep people buzzing about your work.
 However, the explosion of social networking websites like Facebook has opened new marketing doors that earlier APPC members couldn't even imagine.

 Your portfolio is displayed on your website, and you tweet regularly about new work...so, how many actual sales has this translated into?
 Posting fresh pictures to your new Facebook page has gotten lots of "Likes" and "Great work!" comments...so why is your shopping cart software getting rusty?

 The first part of the answer lies in the total number of your page's "Fans", and the second half of the answer lies in how you handle those loyal few who have managed to hang around without UN-liking your page, or simply blocking your pleas for attention from their newsfeed.

   Surely some may not like the sound of this, but: Your art is your product.
 Lofty ideals aside, you must sell your product in order to create more product.

 The sale of any product relies on a basic marketing formula, which has been watered down over the last few decades by thousands of professional salesmen, to the following over-simplified truism: It's A Numbers Game.
 In effect, the rule states that you must present your product to no less than one hundred times your expected buyers.
...or as many salesmen like to present it:
 You will hear 99 NOs for every YES...on a good day.

 Art is a specialty product, and a 1% 'Buy-ratio' is a decent rate of return (ROI*) on your marketing investment, whether that investment is in the form of labor, facebook time, or fees paid to a professional marketing firm.
 *(ROI=Return On Investment, an important budgeting term for marketers. Tweeting to 80 people for six months and receiving no sales, is a horrible[0%] ROI.)

 So, How to get those elusive sales?
The first step is to build your exclusive audience, and to then grow that number into a respectable group of potential buyers.
 Your Facebook fanpage is an excellent forum from which you can announce your talents to the world, and the social-networking equivalent to the "exclusive email marketing lists" of the 90s, and the "Three Keys" are the same;
  Rule #1. Grow Your Audience.
  Rule #2. Market Sparingly.
  Rule #3. Grow Your Audience.

  I can hear you grumbling already..."How the he!! do I find time to be my own PR department when I barely find time to brush & floss as it is!?
 - You knew I had a point to make...and here it is-

  Our old friend (and founding member) J.B. "Pop" Stran of Martinsburg Photography is, among many things, an online marketing professional.
 He was best known in the 90s as "the Grandfather of affiliate marketing" because of his role in creating and developing what is known today as the "online dating" service.

 Pop is still around, and while pursuing his life-long love of all things photographic he has also been active and current in the concepts of social marketing.
 Pop has also been the driving force behind many APPC members' social-networking sales successes.

Here's the link:    http://www.martinsburgphotos.com/#!faq

  You'll notice that Pop has graciously agreed to offer his professional "hands-off" photographer's social marketing program to all members at the APPC-Special price of Less than $20...with another 40% discount for the monthly plan!!

 *As an example:  Pop's Martinsburg Photos site is on Facebook, and at the time of this posting had just over 1,500 REAL Fans...not too shabby for a one-year-old fanpage.
 **Real fans, as opposed to the fake bot "likes" that most fly-by-night fan-sellers offer.

We at the APPC put our new facebook fanpage into Pop's hands, and the results were even more amazing: Our 3 DAY Old fanpage has just over 800 Fans! and Growing!!

 Forget the hype.    You're too intelligent to be fooled by extra punctuation, right?
  Trust instead your own reason and logic; because the results are real, easily proven, and they speak for themselves.
 Need a bit more evidence?
  Pop also has Five more fanpages on facebook;  None is older than one year...and none has less than 500 Fans...How many do you have?
    > Pop's 2nd page: Secret Cures (950 fans)
   > Pop's 3rd page: BigAssGrafix (870 fans)
  > Pop's 4th page: PopsGifts  (550 fans)
 > Pop's 5th page: JBStran   (1,100 fans)

 When Pop markets (rarely) to his fans (5,000 and growing daily), people buy.
 ...because It's A Numbers Game...and Pop knows how to play like a pro.
  Ready to put a Pro in YOUR corner for less than twenty bucks a month?

http://www.martinsburgphotos.com/#!faq

Copyright
    JBStran.com
    PopsGifts.com
    HealThySelfCures.com
    MartinsburgPhotos.com