Drop by wastedphotos and check out the “Communist Photoing” post, by the way, this photoblog has some of the wittiest titles and commentary I have come across.

I created a Facebook page for my photography quite awhile ago, but never really promoted to anyone other than my real-life friends.  Recently, I made the decision to try to get more people at “fans” of my photography and added a “club link” on my photoblog.

Check out the Behind the Lens to get an idea on what I have done.

Here’s what I have in an attempt to get folks to become fans,

• I am offering discounts on select images on my photoblog, to all my fans,
• Releasing special limited edition prints only on Facebook.
• And believe it or not, I will even add you to my Christmas card list!

My goal is to simply promote my photography in another channel.  My opinion is the more eyes on my work, the better chances I have to sell some work.

NOTE:  I am pretty happy with the results so far.  I don’t get a ton of traffic to my photoblog properly due to any number of reasons, but I have managed to add two new fans already!  I will keep you all updated on my progress.

Anyone else have any ideas on promoting your photoblog through social networks?

Don’t leave home without it
It doesn’t matter where you are going; make sure that you have your camera (and at least one memory card) with you at all times.  You’ll be amazed at what you find interesting and all this practice is only going to make your photography better over the long-term.

Streamline your workflow
It won’t make a difference on how often you’re shooting if none of your work ever makes it from your ever increasing storage space.  When I first got started I was guilty of this, my girlfriend would just roll her eyes and leave the room when I hit hour two on a single image.  Be brutal with your workflow, and optimize it any way you can

Be proactive
By this I mean get a few images “queued up” and let your photoblog platform worry about when to post the images.  The benefits associated with this are two-fold, first your regulars know exactly when to expect something new, and you’re not messing around with your photoblog every day.  Do what you do best – take photographs, and let the software handle to details!

That’s it for now, does anyone have any other streamlining tips?

• The rise of the photoblog as a marketing tool to other creatives,
• The importance of separating the blog from the main site

As I was listening I scrawled down a few notes and wanted to make a few comments, so here it goes,

Writing on your Photoblog
One of the comments that jumped out at me immediately was when Leslie recommended using “…some words…” on your photoblog.  I’ve touched on adding text to your photoblog before, and still believe that search engines are going to be responsible for the majority of your traffic, so you had better make sure you give them what they want – words!  Just make sure that you’re targeting what you say to a specific audience and that it’s relevant.  One other thing, Leslie mentions that technical jargon, i.e. f/stops, aperture, lighting, etc., typically appeals to other photographers and as I’ve mentioned many times on this site, those folks shouldn’t be your target market!  The morale is, keep the jargon to a minimum.

Frequent Updates
Leslie mentions to “…update often…” and I couldn’t agree more.  I see it on this blog as well, the more I update the more traffic I get; you need to be updating as much as possible on your photoblog.  Nowadays, folks are swamped with information, and if you don’t provide a continous stream of new updates your photoblog is going to fall to the bottom of a person’s reading list very fast!

Separation of blog and portfolio
Again I agree 100%, make your photoblog the place where you have fun, and show your creative side, save the best work for your portfolio site, but make sure that visitors to either site can easily find the other!

Instead of publishing generic RSS feeds which cover all the images on your photoblog, why not create specific feeds based on the high-level categorization of the images on your photoblog? With a little planning most photoblogs could easily categorize their photography into a few high-level categories and then allow their fans to subscribe to one (or more) feeds based on their own likes.

I am personally considering the creation of individual feeds based on the high-level categories that I have created based on what I like to shoot, this way the people who frequent my photoblog are able to get updates related directly to what they are interested in, nothing more, and nothing less.

Since my photoblog is based on Pixelpost I spent some time looking for addon to accomplish this multiple feed feature, but as I am writing this I have had no luck locating an applicable plugin. I will let you all know if I find something.

Why don’t we publish images with larger dimensions?  Very few photoblogs that I have come across publish images with the largest dimension being larger than 700px, the images on Big Picture have a dimension of 990px!

Based on what I see on this blog, and my own photoblog, the argument that people just don’t have big screens just doesn’t cut it anymore.  Only 2% of visitors to this blog have a screen resolution of 800×600, the majority of visitors are either at 1024×768 or higher!

The thing that impressed me the most about The Big Picture was just how truly engulfing images of that size are.  Why not try publishing larger images on your blog and see what the reaction is, I would bet that your readers are going to enjoy it.  Let us all know if you find the amount of time that your visitors are spending on your site goes up after publishing larger images.

One final note, if you have been reading this blog for any amount of time you know how big of a fan I am of Seth Godin, and in particular his book, “Purple Cow”.  Converting your blog to show larger images may be a Purple Cow, but I doubt it will last for very long, so keep thinking of ways to make your photoblog stand out.

NOTE: The world’s most travelled book is still relaxing down-under with Brendan O’Shea waiting for it’s next journey to begin so if you want to read Seth’s Purple Cow contact me with your mailing address.