Wedding season is upon us, so we reached out to our friends at Fotoskribe, a premium blogging service for photographers, to get some advice on keeping your blog going strong during the summer months. Melissa Merwin, Chief Content Creator, shares her advice for how to stay active without breaking the bank on your valuable time. All photos © Kristin Chalmers Photography.
In the world of social media, placing shareable posts and content on your blog helps you to connect with more clients. But your blog will never call you up and yell at you if you don’t post regularly. Clients come first, of course, but it’s critical to have a system in place to ensure your business continues to generate inbound leads. The best way to do that is through regular and consistent blogging. We wanted to provide you some strategies on how to make sure that your blogging doesn’t fall behind while you are out there capturing beautiful images this season.
1. Schedule, schedule, schedule
Google is always looking for new content. But instead of posting three or four blog posts in a day, it is better to blog regularly and consistently. How consistent? The same day of the week at the same time. This level of consistency allows for an SEO boost to the way search engines find new content. The regularity of new content from your blog helps raise your ranking in search results. It also can help you to attract a following with your clients and potential clients as they will see your posts regularly in their newsfeeds.
It might sound difficult to accomplish, but with most blog platforms, you can schedule your posts ahead of time. So if you have a Wednesday afternoon with some extra time, you can write up a few blog posts, use the Fundy’s Blog Collage to group some of your beautiful images together and then schedule them out. This allows you to set yourself up for consistency and not have to worry about producing new content every week. Scheduling posts ahead of time takes the worry out of blogging!
2. Think outside of the box
Not every post has to be all about an event or a shoot. You know how they say a picture is worth 1000 words? Well that should make for at least two blog posts. Your images tell an amazing story. Think of ways that you can use them for additional posts. Telling the story of the day is wonderful and your clients and their friends and loved ones cherish those posts. But think about what additional pieces you can create with those images…
• Grab your favorite shots of ring details and write a post about wedding rings.
• Think about your favorite places to photograph and do a post showcasing that specific local venue.
• Get seasonal and do a “Best of 2014 Summer/Winter/Fall/Spring Weddings” post.
• Find your favorite bouquets and do a post about bouquets. Bonus points if you can tag some local vendors!
Get creative! The great thing about re-using images is that you can tag previous clients and reconnect with them. It helps you to stay front of mind which can help to generate referrals.
3. Recycle Content
Your thoughtfully written posts shouldn’t be posted once and forgotten. Just because it was posted last month doesn’t mean that you can’t post a link to it again. Share links to existing posts across your different social platforms. Grab a post from last week, last month or last year and link it again. By building an inventory of strong blog posts and sharing them in different ways across your social media platforms, you will get the most out of the images you capture and the content you create. There are some awesome apps that can help with this like Buffer and Co-Schedule. For more information on how to get the most out of your existing images and content, check out our e-book.
4. Get Some Help
Sometimes what we really need is a few more hours in a day. One way to get that is by finding trusted partners who can help you with your business tasks. Whether you find a program that you believe in or a specialist you can delegate to, remember to focus on the things that you do best. It will help you to be happier while you are working and might help you to avoid getting burned.
Don’t let the busy season get you down. Make sure to get the most out of your images by having a plan in place. That way, no matter how busy you get, you know that at least your blog is taken care of. It may take a little extra effort, but blogging and creating a strong marketing effort during this period can help create a successful platform for lucrative booking in the next year. If you need help with your regular blogging, feel free to contact us at Fotoskribe any time!
For more information on Fotoskribe and other blogging tips, visit their website or follow them on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
