New Business Models (2)

Collaboration and Maintaining Client Relationships

The new web (commonly called Web 2.0) is about relationships, interaction, communities and networks. Sites like YouTube, MySpace and Flickr are showing memberships in the millions. Relationships and collaboration will be the new way of doing things in the very near future. It is vital to be able to communicate with your clients about jobs, ideas, sales and more.

E-mail is the standard at the moment, but it is losing its luster as spammers, phishing, spoofing and even more insidious forms of cyber terror (and that is exactly what it is) seem to be replicating themselves in ever spiraling amounts. As we see more and more people not wanting to share information, and email addresses for fear of getting ten thousand emails about Viagra, the press is on to find better ways to communicate safely.

Enter closed networks, Peer-to-Peer, drop-off sites and more. Using these tools, most of them free, lets you communicate a level of trust that will help your clients feel warm and fuzzy about working with you.

Currently I use Box.net for sharing files as well as E-Snips.com. I have free accounts at both and will probably get a professional account at one of them soon. I can create private boxes, shared boxes and public boxes that will allow clients to pick up files, images and video clips.

You can also use Flickr and Zooomr to show and distribute hi-res files. By making sets of ‘Friends’ and family, you can upload hi-res images that can then be shared by whoever you have identified as having permissions. Yes, there are lots of other tools that you can use, but I am showing you what I do, and how it works for me.

Google and Yahoo both have sharing, web galleries, private and shared and more. Just look for sharing sites to store your files with permissions you set.

Many photographers are now building portfolios at Flickr, Zoomr, MySpace, MSN Spaces and Squidoo. These community sites all have free membership and tremendous traffic. A great way to show work, meet people and also to develop a fun place to have clients go to see what you do.

Blogs, and not just PhotoBlogs are one of the best ways to keep your clients entertained and coming back for more. I maintain a blog that is somewhat professional in scope (wizwow.blogspot.com) and one that is purely for fun (dongiannatti.blogspot.com). I also have a photoblog at my-expressions.com. I get lots of referrals from my fun blog and they also then go over to my site from all of the blogs. My posts at the fun blog are mostly personal and show images from portrait shoots, glamour shoots and whatever catches my fancy. However, when the brides and prospective brides visit that blog, they share it with all of their friends.

There are even more untraditional ways to show your work, gain interest and guide your clients and prospects to. Sites like Fine Art Nudes and Fred Miranda showcase photographers work and can lead visitors to your personal site. Look for these ‘collective’ sites and join, show your work and create interest in what you are doing.

Mighty Imaging, a lab in Phoenix, AZ provides gallery space for photographers wishing to sell display prints. Mighty allows the photographers to set their price and Mighty Imaging only keeps their published print pricing, allowing the photographers to mark up the images whatever they want. This helps the photographers by providing access to their images to the MI visitors and allows the visitors to the galleries to see the products that MI offers. Powerful synergy, and the combining of visitors to both the photographers and the lab make it something that virally increases awareness of both.

Keeping in touch with your clients couldn’t be easier these days. Constant Contact (constantcontact.com) is one of the easiest and most cost effective ways to maintain a monthly newsletter or email and generate trust while showing value. Pick a template, write an article, mention your cool jobs, and send it to your list.

Keeping your website up to date, maintaining a news section, adding new images and making fresh content is another way of keeping your clients involved. Sites that never change are somewhat offensive to me. It is like saying, “Look, we don’t care enough about returning visitors to change our site at all…” – and that is simply wrong. Returning visitors are exactly the group you want to impress.

If you can’t change the text, add images and galleries whenever you want, and tweak the meta-content for search engines, then the site is too rigid and will not do you well as a tool for growth. These days, photographers should be able to maintain a dynamic site from their computers online. I am not advocating learning Dreamweaver, but Contribute is easy, as is a Total-Control-Site.

There are many more ways to stay connected to your clients, but the above will give you a good head start.