Blogging

I’m delighted to be able to share with you the delicious blog design we recently created for Rona Wheeldon. Rona will mostly be known to you as The Organised PA -a prolific tweeter and superbly organised virtual assistant. I was delighted when Rona confided in me that she was thinking of setting up her own blog – inspired by flowers as a result of investing in Decor8′s Blogging Your Way ecourse.

Rona had taken lots of time to think through what would make her blog different, who her readers might be and the styles of blog she liked. It made designing the blog an absolute pleasure and I know that Chloe really enjoyed working on this project.

What many people don’t know is that Rona has loved flowers since, well, forever, and trained as a florist before working for Paula Pryke, one of the UK’s top florists. I think that it’s this passion that Rona has for all things flowers – not just floristry but also floral stationery, cakes, cards and teacups to name just a few that makes her blog so engaging and different.

I really love the quirky font and attention to detail on the number of comments and tweet links. Chloe’s also made sure that all the sidebar elements are styled well and in line with the brand identity – even the credit to us follows the Flowerona theme.

Rona’s blog is already creating quite a stir within the blogging community with some cracking florists featured (and offering some special discounts for Rona’s readers so do check out the blog) as well as plenty of tweets and comments. Do check it out if you get a chance: www.flowerona.com

Tagged as in Blogging, Branding, Case Studies, From The Studio, Graphic Design

Yesterday we looked at how e-tailers (people who sell stuff online) should be looking to online bloggers as well as traditional printed media channels to gain exposure, endorsements and traffic to their sites. But how do you do it the right way? And is there a wrong way?

Start by doing your homework. Read the bloggers in your niche and suss out which ones resonate with your brand and your clients. Draw up a hitlist of five or so that you’d like to be featured on and start to build relationships with the writers. Network with them on social media sites such as twitter and comment on their blogs. Ideally you want to maintain a buzz of regular exposure so build long term relationships if you can rather than one-hot wonders.

Bloggers love good content! Great photos, news their clients will love, scoops, sneak peeks and so on are great for the bloggers. It adds richness to their site as well as making their lives easier. I love the ethics of bloggers such as DesignSponge who only feature on merit rather than due to backhanders! It definitely makes the reading experience more authentic.

I’ve seen too blogs recently which have clearly just cut and pasted badly written press releases on blogs. It doesn’t work for the blogger or the product and it looks transparent. Blogging is different to the printed media. Just as you wouldn’t want a journalist to print your press release in full (including contact information for your PR) so you don’t want bloggers to publish that info either. And whereas trad PR may follow a very fixed format, blogging is more free and easy. When we’re reading a blog we want the inside scoop – and that means the blogger giving their opinions and hopefully endorsing your product in some way – so don’t write your usual style release.

Make sure you send in great images and ask the blog owner what they’re looking for. Oh, and just as with printed media don’t forget to be grateful – a little thank you (I mean literally just thank you – no need to bribe…) goes a long way!

Tagged as in Blogging, Marketing

I probably won’t be telling you anything earth shattering when I share the idea that blogging can be great for photographers. Most savvy photographers know that a blog alongside their website is a good thing. But does your blog win you enough business? Or is it more a a time-drain with very little return? Read on for my top tips on how you can turn your blog into a client magnet.

1. Post regularly. The best blogs have fresh content – that means posting ideally 2-3 times a week, but once is great if that’s all you can manage

2. Post little and often: your posts don’t all need to be 24 picture epics – try just taking your top 12 images and maybe splitting into multiple posts. One of my favourite tricks I like to borrow from party plan bloggers is to blog one post with the people and events and another of all the delicious details. Guess which post is more popular!

3. Post about things you want to be known for: we all take work that’s not core to what we’re doing – it doesn’t mean that you need to put every single piece of work you do on your blog mind! Think about your brand: how do you want people to perceive you? Which leads me neatly on to…

4. Put your editorial spin on your posts. Your job as a photographer is generally to make things and people look as beautiful and enticing as possible. Your blog is there not as a showcase to your current clients but as an insight into what you can do for others – so you don’t need to clog it up with anything that isn’t beautiful or enticing (or edgy, or cool, or whatever your brand is about…). There’s no need to showcase 20 lineup pictures on your blog – it’s boring to your repeat visitors and your client can see them all in the viewing.

5. Brand your blog as you would your website. We create a lot of blogs for photographers and I love the creativity that we’re able to pour into them to help the photographs stand out to the max. Each one is different because each photographer is different. Resist the temptation to simply download a standard template and invest in your blog like your website. Love her or loathe her (I’m in the former camp!) Jasmine Star’s blog is a great example of what’s possible with a bit of vision

6. Introduce regular features to keep readers interested - on my blog we have In the studio this week… posts featuring work that we’re particularly proud of (I only tend to showcase 20-30% of what we’ve been up to simply because I want to blog about other things too!). Spend some time brainstorming ideas for  categories and titles when you’re feeling particularly creative (after a walk is good) and then you’ll never be stuck for what to post about

7. Showcase the sort of work you’d like to be doing. Try taking one photo a day/ one a week depending on your time that showcases the sort of work you want to get into. You might do a bride of the week or a simple pleasure of the day… It’s a great opportunity to showcase your own personal style without the interruption of a client brief!

8. Encourage your clients and your readers to comment by introducing articles that provoke some debate! And don’t forget to tell your clients that you’ll be blogging about them and that you’d love a comment – what could be better than a live testimonial?

9. Use the sidebars to call to action: make sure you invite people to visit your website and also have something on there that advertises your sessions with a direct link back to your site to sell them the benefits of a shoot with you.

So those are a few quick and dirty tips specifically to photographers but I’d love to hear your thoughts. What else do you do with your blog to make sure you win plenty of business? Have you tried anything that really didn’t work? I’ll be running a workshop on how to create a blog that’ll win you more business in February and it would be great to see you there – full details on our website.

Tagged as in Blogging, Online Marketing

Receiving a comment on your blog is wonderful – it reaffirms that someone, somewhere out there is reading your ramblings. And very often it’s the start of a community all centred around your blog. What’s not to like? Well not all comments are good comments. Spammers have become very clever at singling out bloggers, writing [...]

Tagged as in Blogging, Online Marketing

There are many things that hold people back from blogging: fear of writing, fear of being exposed for your weaknesses, fear of peoples’ reactions to your beliefs and at the top of the list: fear of being ridiculed. How many times have you hit the “publish” button terrified of what people will think? What they’ll [...]

Tagged as in Blogging, Online Marketing

Tracy Stonard runs Magenta Cakes, a cupcake and cake baking business based in Surrey. You might remember me sharing her new logo designs here and she also baked the cakes for the Flourish launch party. We created Tracy’s website for her some months back and are delighted to unveil her shiny new blog. It’s been [...]

Tagged as in Blogging, Case Studies, From The Studio, Graphic Design, Online Marketing

Natalia Barbour is an elegant and stylish Interior Designer based in Guildford. She approached us initially to help her create a brand identity for her business, and just recently we’ve been working on her website and blog design. Natalia is a lady with high standards to rival ours (yes, it is possible!) and a very [...]

Tagged as in Blogging, Case Studies, From The Studio, Graphic Design, Online Marketing, Web Design, Websites

I feel a little bit choked writing this post because all of the bloggers I’m featuring on today’s post attended the blogging workshop I ran with Tom Evans back in June. A couple of months on here they are: blogging to their hearts content and writing some fab content to boot. When I think that [...]

Tagged as in Blogging, Case Studies, Marketing, Workshops

Lisa Cox is a garden designer based in Leatherhead. We’ve been working together for the past three months on her marketing strategy – focusing on getting Lisa plenty of profitable clients to help her achieve her financial goals. We started in May by defining Lisa’s brand strategy and understanding who her most profitable clients would [...]

Tagged as in Blogging, Branding, Case Studies, From The Studio, Graphic Design, Online Marketing

We’ve been creating a lot of blogs for people recently, and something I must sound like a broken record on in every briefing meeting is my insistance that bloggers work with a {good} photographer to get a professional headshot. I can’t tell you the difference it makes. Actually I don’t need to tell you the [...]

Tagged as , cobham pilates, home truths, matt pereira, photography, sam jones in Blogging, Graphic Design, Marketing, Online Marketing