Family-friendly Design Doesn"t Have To Be Ugly

Thankfully, modern choices for home décor today make it easy to be chic while you"re rocking your baby to sleep. And when you"re lounging on the couch together, and crawling on the floor, and hanging out in every corner of your house.
Family-friendly Design Doesn"t Have To Be Ugly

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Canada"s Home Builders Say Taxes Are Putting Homeowners At Risk

High taxes on new home purchases are not only making homes unaffordable for Canadians, but they are "putting at risk the long-term value of existing homes and the financial security of those who currently own them," say the country"s home builders.
Canada"s Home Builders Say Taxes Are Putting Homeowners At Risk

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A Contingency Offer Is a Lot Better Than No Offer At All

Now that the market has slowed a bit -- i.e. returned to normal -- contingency offers are more common and, I would argue, more palatable than they have been during the past few years.
A Contingency Offer Is a Lot Better Than No Offer At All

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Aperture Is Dead: What Does This Say About The Future Of Other Apple Pro Applications?

It was no big surprise to me to hear that Apple is going to stop development of Aperture beyond OS-X Yosemite. Aperture will be updated to run on Yosemite but won’t be developed further. I effectively predicted this a year ago. The writing has been on the wall for many years. Apple hasn’t been keeping up […]
Aperture Is Dead: What Does This Say About The Future Of Other Apple Pro Applications?

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Google To Shut Down Its First Social Network, Orkut by @mattsouthern

It was announced today that Google intends to shut down its very first social network, Orkut. As of September 30, 2014, Orkut will no longer be available. Orkut’s primary audience was in India and Brazil, but interest in the network has been waning over time. It is no longer used by as many people, and this Google Trends chart shows that interest in Orkut saw a sharp decline in 2012 that it did not recover from. The Orkut blog illustrates the decline of the social network: Ten years ago, Orkut was Google’s first foray into social networking. Built as a […]

The post Google To Shut Down Its First Social Network, Orkut by @mattsouthern appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Google To Shut Down Its First Social Network, Orkut by @mattsouthern

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Twitter Offers Mobile App Promotion To All Advertisers by @mattsouthern

Today, Twitter announced that they’re going to begin offering mobile app promotion to all advertisers after seeing strong results during a beta test earlier this year. During the mobile app promotion beta, advertisers were given the opportunity to reach their audience on Twitter and engaged drive a large volume of downloads for their app. Mobile app promotion utilizes Twitter’s existing targeting options, including interest, keyword, TV targeting and tailored audiences, to help advertisers reach a targeted audience. On top of the those targeting options, you can also couple them with gender, location, language and mobile platform targeting. After you have […]

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Twitter Offers Mobile App Promotion To All Advertisers by @mattsouthern

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7 Ways to Maximize SEO on Your WordPress Site by @beymour

One of the first decisions you’ll face when building a new website is figuring out which content management system (CMS) to use. There are quite a few CMS options available, but there’s one particular platform that reigns supreme, regardless of what type of project, budget or technical experience you may have. That platform is none other than WordPress. Currently over 74 million websites depend on WordPress, including CNN, Mashable, New York Times, Samsung, Forbes, and eBay, to name just a few. WordPress has made leaps and bounds since its initial launch back in 2003, and now larger brands are beginning […]

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7 Ways to Maximize SEO on Your WordPress Site by @beymour

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10 Invoice Resources to Bill Your Agency Clients by @albertcostill

If you run a small business, then you understand how important it is to get paid on time. In fact, it’s one of the most important aspects of running a business. After all, how can you pay for your expenses if you have a cash flow problem? That’s why invoices are so important. Despite the importance of invoices, that doesn’t make them everyone’s favorite task. Invoices can be time-consuming and tedious. Based on the Intuit Small Business Survey in November 2011, “25 percent said that they spend as much as three to five hours each week invoicing and chasing down […]

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10 Invoice Resources to Bill Your Agency Clients by @albertcostill

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The Seven Essentials of a Reconsideration Request by @neilpatel

A reconsideration request is the final step in the removal of a manual search penalty on your site. If you have received such a penalty, your life will be consumed by trying to remove that penalty until you are successful. Few things matter more to your online business. The reconsideration request shouldn’t be taken lightly. Since this is the pinnacle of your labor, you need to ensure you take all the correct steps. I’ve created this document, because I want your reconsideration request to be successful. First Things First This article attempts to explain the final step in a manual penalty removal […]

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The Seven Essentials of a Reconsideration Request by @neilpatel

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Real Estate Photography Question and Answers – #9

Linda’s Question:  I had a question about business insurance and found your post  from April 2010. I was wondering if we also need to be bonded, or if the business insurance is sufficient? I was thinking specifically about times we shoot in homes alone. Do you know the answer to this? Answer: I‘ve never heard of real estate photographers […]

Real Estate Photography Question and Answers – #9

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6 Great WordPress Plugins for SEO by @tbrodbeck

At last check, there are well over 31,000 different plugins in the WordPress Directory – and that number continues to grow daily. Plus, there are another 2,700 WordPress plugins available on CodeCanyon and many others available to download. There are lots of great plugins out there, but which ones are best for helping you improve your website’s SEO? Well, I compiled a list of my six favorite WordPress plugins to help you improve your websites SEO quickly. WordPress SEO By Yoast WordPress SEO by Yoast is by far one of the most powerful WordPress plugins you can install on your website to help […]

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6 Great WordPress Plugins for SEO by @tbrodbeck

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Creativity and Real-Time Technology Come Together at Cannes Lions by @murraynewlands

Last week I was at Cannes Lions, the world’s largest annual awards show and festival for professionals in the creative communications industry. I wanted to recap some of what I’d seen, as it pertains to our industry of digital marketing. Tuesday’s awards session celebrated excellence in Outdoor, Mobile, and Media, as Lions were awarded to the industry’s finest in those fields. The greatest takeaway from this session was how advertising can have a positive effect on the world, thanks to advances in technology. An example of this was Kolle Rebbe’s “Social Swipe” campaign. The Social Swipe campaign set up interactive posters […]

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Creativity and Real-Time Technology Come Together at Cannes Lions by @murraynewlands

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Facebook Introduces Multi-Product Ads And Enhanced Custom Audiences by @mattsouthern

This week, Facebook announced two new advertising enhancements that designed to make remarketing on Facebook even more effective. The enhancements include the introduction of multi-product ads, and updates to Custom Audiences from your website. Multi-product ads Facebook’s new Multi-product ads give businesses the opportunity to display three products within a single ad unit, on either desktop or mobile. Each of the three advertised products will have its own image, description and click target. This new ad unit would be particularly powerful for online retailers that are looking to reach visitors that left their website without making a purchase. Using the […]

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Facebook Introduces Multi-Product Ads And Enhanced Custom Audiences by @mattsouthern

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Olivia Bee’s Teenage Photos – #ILovePhoto Chat – June 27, 2014

This week Allen Murabayashi and I discuss a handful of wonderful photo series’ including the 20 year old Olivia Bee’s photos that are currently being shown at the agnès b Galerie Boutique. Her work brings up the question: as technology advances and the ability to take photographs becomes easier and more accessible, will there be a photographic prodigy child among the next generation? Watch below as we discuss and follow with the links provided or subscribe to our iTunes podcast!

Links

1:48 Clint Davis’ Awesome Photographer Promo

5:18 Casey Templeton’s 2010 Photographer Promo

7:17 CYJO’s Stunning Portraits of Mixed-Race Families

10:12 Martin Schoeller’s Mixed Race Portraits

11:45 Glenna Gordon’s Remaining Items from the Kidnapped Nigerian Girls

14:14 Olivia Bee’s Personal Images of Her Teenage Years

19:27 Milton H. Greene’s Found Photos of Marilyn Monroe

21:58 New York Banning Tiger Selfies

24:10 Nikon Introduces the D810

27:18 Niki Feijen’s Images of Abandoned Places

29:00 Micael Reynaud’s Mezmerizing Animated GIFs

30:35 Sandro Giordoan’s Worn Out Characters

 

Olivia Bee’s Teenage Photos – #ILovePhoto Chat – June 27, 2014

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Social Media Tips for Aspiring Fashion Photographers from Lindsay Adler

This piece originally appeared in our guide Breaking into Fashion Photography– for the full article download the guide here.

Lindsay Adler, a New York based fashion and portrait photographer, knows how to do social media. Not only does she have a solid following of over 37K on Twitter and almost 40K on Facebook, but she wrote a book on how to make it happen.

Photo by Lindsay Adler

Lindsay’s success in social media is the product of both gumption and follow-through. Here’s how Lindsay established a voice, built an audience, and continues to maintain a social presence that makes her fashion clientele pay attention.

How did you develop and execute such an effective social media strategy?

I did research online and found people with the most followers or popularly read blogs, and then I started doing interviews. I didn’t go into the interviews with any preconceived notions. I asked people questions, like how much time they spent on social, and how they grew their followings.

I try to judge, based on other people I follow, what I find annoying versus what post volume it takes to keep someone in my thoughts. For me I post across channels probably three to ten times a day. On Instagram I try to post once or twice a day unless I’m doing something interesting. I like to post to Twitter one to three times a day, and on Facebook one to three times.

How did you tailor your social use for the fashion industry?

For the fashion industry in particular you always hear that it’s who you know that determines success. For successful use of social media in the fashion industry you don’t have to know a ton of people, you have to make yourself known to them.

And remember, you’re not trying to get a connection with a business, you’re trying to make a connection with a person. Whether it’s a creative director or buyer, a photo editor or an editor in chief, they’re all individuals. If you go around tweeting at a magazine page as your business identity it will just blend in or seem like spam. If you can target the individual that makes buying decisions, that’s your in.

How do you find those individual fashion photography buyers on social media?

I haven’t yet found an easy solution. A lot of my searching doesn’t happen on Instagram if I’m looking for someone’s Instagram account. I will search someone’s name plus “Instagram” (or Twitter or LinkedIn) on Google. Right now it’s just a lot of leg work.

Once you’ve found fashion photography buyers on social, how do you interact with them?

I like to comment on someone’s photo, say something insightful, or make a note of something specific. If someone went to a gallery or a museum I can recommend another that’s similar. When I have a picture that I think they might like, I include them in the description or tag them in it, and invite them to check it out.

I also do research on some social channels like LinkedIn, and send a personalized message on other channels that are more welcoming. So when I want to send a personalized message I’ll go through Instagram. By looking at someone’s Instagram account I can find out what they like, what they do, and what they’re interested in. Then I can start a conversation based on that.

Truthfully people love to talk about their lives. They love to know people are paying attention and care about them. If you can talk to them, if you’ve done your research, that’s going to catch their attention. If I can say to someone that I was following them on Instagram and loved that they were drawn to a certain aesthetics, I can add that I think I could offer them what I’d seen in their photos. Something like that.

Photo by Lindsay Adler

How do you decide what kind of content will work for your own social channels, as a fashion brand?

I’m constantly checking out where my clients are and what they’re posting. Everything is always changing, Facebook’s algorithms are constantly changing. If I post a status update on my Facebook page no one sees it. No matter what I want to share I have to include a photo.

For example, if I post a status update of something that I did, a cool shoot with someone, it might get two thousand views. Whereas if I post a picture of me on set, or a picture of my client getting her makeup done, that might get eight thousand. It’s night and day.

Currently I can’t post multiple photos in an album at once, either. The posts that get the most views are the ones that are posted directly to my feed.

How do you track your success?

Facebook insights have improved dramatically so that helps me to be able to focus my efforts. I also use Hootsuite and Google Analytics, and the built metrics on the individual sites that I’m using.

What metrics are important to me are shares, reposts and comments. Likes are good but likes just tell me that people have acknowledged seeing a post. Comments and shares say that someone has made an effort to interact with my brand.

A lot of analytics I’m looking for are how many eyes are coming across my work and at what time of day, which helps me to focus my efforts.

What’s a definite win when it comes to posting for a fashion audience?

Video gives another dimension to your behind the scenes workflow, especially for interaction. For me my behind the scenes videos are very popular and get re-shared by different fashion blogs all the time. They don’t do it with single photos, they do it with videos.

The video doesn’t have to be complex, an Instagram video works to show what you’re like. I did mine in iPhoto, and it’s very formulaic. I’d do a closeup of the makeup on set, then the makeup being done. A quick overview of the set. Then you see my face; a shot over my shoulder and a shot of the model posing and then a shot of me laughing with my clients. The end. Pretty much the same every time.

You figure out what you want to share as your brand and you put that in every video.Then you can put those videos in a video tab or a behind-the-scenes tab on your website.

What are some definite don’ts for fashion photographers using social?

One major don’t is posting something on social that you’re hoping to sell. You don’t want to post anything that looks too similar to the final product. Because if you post a photo that looks anything like the final product most magazines won’t want to run it anymore. You’ve already published it.

Make sure that when you’re posting things from on set it really looks like it’s on the set—include a makeup brush, a light, a backdrop.

Also don’t complain. If any of your media outlets can see you complaining then they feel like you’re going to bring that to your interactions with them. I see photographers do way too much complaining. I see it nonstop.

Photo by Lindsay Adler

…and Dos?

It’s really easy to keep track of contacts you’ve made on set now if you tag them in your behind the scenes shots. Everyone wants to be Instagramed, so all you do is ask everyone on set if you can tag them in your picture.Then you have this permanent record of who was on your set.

And don’t feel afraid of sharing. A lot of photographers are perfectionists and are afraid of never being good enough, they always feel that they can be better. I feel like the next photo I post will always be better, so if I waited for my best it would never come. I realize that it’s more important to put work out there than to feel that I’m perfect.

Want more information on how to break into the fashion photography industry? Download our guide Breaking into Fashion Photography today!

Social Media Tips for Aspiring Fashion Photographers from Lindsay Adler

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