Social Networking to Promote Live Event Photo Sales

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Archive 2012 · Social Networking to Promote Live Event Photo Sales

Gene Schilling
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p.1 #1 · Social Networking to Promote Live Event Photo Sales

I am covering a live music festival in a few weeks here in southern Ontario, Canada. Big name bands, expecting about 10,000 fans over three days. I've landed the "official photog" role, but the promoters have no real expectations other than to post some photos for fans to see. My immediate goal is to post photo galleries to my website to generate print sales immediately after the event. And hopefully selling shots direct to the bands, but that is secondary and less likely. The promoters will pitch the photo website on their own site, their Facebook, and onsite during the event. I will have a second and a third shooter for optimum coverage.

My biggest concern is generating traffic to the photo site. My only exposure to social networking is my personal Facebook account and photo blog. Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc. are not as familiar to me. I am thinking there may be value in some level of photo/video blogging live from the event. I have no idea what platform is best, nor how I should best integrate with the other sites including the event FB and my personal FB.

So really my first question is whether social networking is a good path to generate print sales. And secondly, which platform is best.

Looking for some thoughts, wisdom, or past experiences from you all. Thanks in advance.

Apr 28, 2012 at 12:13 AM

chez
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p.1 #2 · Social Networking to Promote Live Event Photo Sales

I covered a music event last year that drew in 35,000 over 3 days. Great acts. I had a website setup to sell my photos and it was linked from the concert site. I also had advertising right at the gates promoting my site.

Sales were dismal. Too many people now days have their own cameras or phones and take photos with enough quality to post onto Facebook. That is all most really want. I would just go and enjoy the challenge of shooting the event and don't sweat the making sales side of things.

Apr 28, 2012 at 11:52 PM

alohadave
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p.1 #3 · Social Networking to Promote Live Event Photo Sales

Gene Schilling wrote:
My biggest concern is generating traffic to the photo site. My only exposure to social networking is my personal Facebook account and photo blog. Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc. are not as familiar to me. I am thinking there may be value in some level of photo/video blogging live from the event. I have no idea what platform is best, nor how I should best integrate with the other sites including the event FB and my personal FB.

So really my first question is whether social networking is a good path to generate print sales. And secondly, which platform is best.

Looking for some thoughts, wisdom, or past experiences from you all. Thanks in advance.

Couple things. If this is going to be an ongoing enterprise, start a fan page on facebook. This will separate your personal facebook and your business. You may be able to get enough people to like your page in time for the event, it depends on how active your friends are, and how social you are. Tell everyone you meet that would be interested to like your page, and update it.

The particular social network doesn't really matter, what matters is using the one or two that you like the best on a regular basis and interact with your fans and followers. There is no 'best' network to use.

Apr 29, 2012 at 01:05 AM

Mr Joe
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p.1 #4 · Social Networking to Promote Live Event Photo Sales

Give people an incentive to look and to share -- coupons and giveaways work well here. Printed collateral can also support this type of marketing. Third party apps like Wildfire are really useful in automating social media promotions: http://www.wildfireapp.com/

Apr 30, 2012 at 04:11 AM

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