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April 4th, 2011

Stop Selling, Start Connecting: 5 Tips for Social Media

Posted by liveBooks

We asked  social media consultant Miki Johnson (San Francisco) to talk with photographer and author David duChemin (Vancouver) about how he uses social media to grow his business. What emerged were 5 ways to rethink social media to emphasize conversation, not sales. Don’t forget you can easily integrate ‘share’ and ‘follow me’ buttons into your liveBooks website by going to the social media section in your editSuite.

Photo by David duChemin

MIKI:

When I met up with David, I assumed we’d be talking about the “business” of social media. He is, after all, a very successful photographer, author, and eBook publisher because of his robust online community: the Pixelated Image blog and nearly 13,000 Twitter followers.

“Everything I’ve gotten professionally has come through my social media involvement — without exaggeration or exception, literally everything,” he says. But when I ask him about “metrics” and “ROI” he looks at me with a bit of exasperation.

“The most important thing I’ve learned about business,” he explains, “is that every opportunity is the result of a conversation.” The heart of social media engagement is that it allows you to have more conversations with people farther away — that’s it. Trying to sell something through social media, David says, “misses the point.”

“The last thing I want to do is be known as a salesman, because that sabotages the community and then people put up their walls and keep you at an arm’s distance,” he explains. Trying to “monetize” social media, using it to make the sale, means you decrease your conversations, and your opportunities.

So what’s the right way to engage with social media? Here are the five things you really need to know. After David’s top tips, you’ll find an edited version of our conversation, including insights into eBook publishing and why social media doesn’t have to be a time-suck.

DAVID:

1. Don’t forget, the online world is still the real world.

You would never walk into a room and, without introducing yourself, assume that everyone wants to hear about your latest greatest thing would you? Most of us will spend time actually listening to people, finding out who they are, and gaining their trust before we try to sell them our AmWay products. Just because it’s technology, that doesn’t give you carte blanche to abuse people with your sales pitches.

2. Use your strengths

We all have ways that we prefer to communicate. Give blogging or Facebook or Twitter a try, but if you don’t like it, don’t force yourself. Because that’s going to be obvious. Some people are not naturally writers; you’ve got to use your strengths. If writing is really truly not your thing, do a video blog or a podcast. Or maybe you don’t even need a blog. You can use Twitter as an ongoing microblog. It’s still a place that people will come to hear little bits and pieces and connect with you.

3. Be yourself

You’ve got to find your own voice. If that is crass and rude and foul-mouthed, then be that person. Because you want your audience to be authentic, one that comes to you because there’s a genuine connection. I don’t really believe in this distinction between work and play. What’s amazing about that is, if you’re not seeing the division between work and play, you’re also not dividing people into “friends” or “clients.” They’re just people.

4. Be a rebel

It’s so funny, because everyone gets into photography and they want to be free spirits and they would never consider shooting the same photograph as someone else — and then when it comes to the business side of things, everyone is looking for a template. Everyone wants to follow rules. I think building your photography business should be as much an act of creativity as your photography. And by implication, your communication about the stuff you do should be creative. It should be quirky. It should be unique to yourself.

5. Be vulnerable

In comedy, you can either screw up on stage and pretend it never happened — and totally lose your audience — or you can screw up on stage and call the moment. When a joke falls flat, the funniest thing you can do is just recognize that the joke fell flat. Because we all feel like we’ve been there. The same is true in social media: You screw up? You fess up, you make a joke about it, you apologize, you move on. And I think that draws people in. The more human we make ourselves, the deeper the connections we make. And even if none of this ever makes a penny for anyone, I think that’s the ultimate reward.

Photo by David duChemin

Miki: So what was life like before you got your first book deal three years ago?

 

David: I spent a lot of time doing mailing lists and creating post cards and following up with clients and working on improving my portfolio. All of those keystone pieces of marketing that everyone, including myself, advocates you do. Then all of a sudden I found my activities switched, and I was spending more of my time just engaging.

I’d been blogging for several years, since 2005 but I got into Twitter kicking and screaming. A friend convinced me to get into it finally and the learning curve was just easy. And there’s something about Twitter that’s less unilateral than a blog, more immediate. Little things fly back and forth, and it keeps people engaged in small bursts, which is more like real life. You know, you make a quick phone call to your buddy, you go have coffee, it’s much more episodic than it is like one massive post every week.

The most important thing I’ve learned, someone said to me a long time ago, David, every opportunity comes as a result of a conversation. Every good thing I’ve gotten in terms of my career has come as a result of my engagement in social media. I think that’s because social media is about having more conversations. More conversations, more opportunities. You don’t pursue it because of the opportunities, but they’re a happy byproduct.

The first thing a publisher says isn’t, what’s your book idea, it’s who’s your audience?

My books also came in some sense from having a platform. When you go to a publisher and you say I have a great book idea, the first thing they say is not what’s your great book idea? The first thing they say is what’s your platform, who’s your audience?

I started to realize that the strength of my audience — because it’s large but it’s not gigantic — is that I’m kind of in it for the long haul. I’m not interested in just selling someone a $5 eBook when I could spend time connecting with them and making friends. And I don’t really believe in this distinction between work and play. What’s amazing about that is, if you’re not seeing the division between work and play, you’re also not seeing the division between people in terms of friends or clients.

I know one guy who was initially sort of a fan/follower, he came on a workshop, then he became a friend. Since then I hired his company to do a $10,000 website project. People become friends and they become part of your community and hopefully there’s an honest interchange. It becomes this small-town mentality people used to have. They knew the guy down the street and they’d hire him because they knew him.

Miki: Are there common mistakes people make when they’re first getting into social media?

 

David: I think the biggest mistake is treating social media like it’s not the real world. Just because it’s technology, don’t treat it like you have this carte blanche to abuse people with your sales pitches. You would never walk into a room and, without introducing yourself, assume that everyone wants to buy your latest greatest thing. Most of us will walk into a room and spend time actually listening to people, finding out who they are, and gaining their trust.

Everyone is talking about monetization, and I’m sure there are industries where that matters, but I think talking about monetization misses the point. If it’s social media, let it just be social. I mean, I advertise our eBooks, but it might be one in twenty tweets, MAYBE that. When a new eBook comes out I say, hey the new eBook is out, here’s the discount code. I might tweet that a second time. But other than that, it’s like, ok, it’s out there, now let’s go back to having a conversation.

When you start looking at people as a potential cash outlet, a potential client, you start kind of writing people off. Because you’re assuming you know how it’s going to pay off for you. The “pay off” might just be relational, it might just be a good friendship. Or you may assume they have nothing to offer you and miss out on an opportunity.

People are pretty savvy. When they feel like they’re being sold to, they tune out pretty quickly. And the last thing I want to do is be known as a salesman. Because I think that sabotages community. Then people put up their walls and they keep you at an arm’s distance.

I want to be the kind of person where people want to have a cup of coffee with me. Instead of being the guy everyone tries to avoid  because he’s just going to pitch me something. “Thanks for meeting me for coffee, you want to buy an eBook? You want to go on a workshop?”

Pursuing community for the sake of community has this fantastic pragmatic spin-off. But the moment you try to pursue the money, it kind of short-circuits itself. It has this natural self-destruct built in that forces you to be real and authentic.

Photo by David duChemin

Miki: What did you first tweet about and has it changed?

 

David: I think I was a little more guarded than I am now. Then I was trying to come up with things to tweet about and trying to be clever. Now I’ve become more off-handed and quite willing to be a little more me. I’ve become more sarcastic, which I am by nature. But certainly the way I use Twitter has changed in terms of me feeling like I can be a little more casual with it. Not planning so much. When something comes up you just kind of throw it out there.

Again, conversation is spontaneous. It’s not, ok, I’m going to meet with Miki and I’m going to talk about these three things. That’s a meeting, it’s not conversation. Whereas if you have a friendship it’s like, oh, I wanted to tell you this! That’s the kind of stuff I’m more and more tweeting…and the stuff I like to read. When I’m reading people’s stuff, I like the stuff that’s a little spontaneous, a little goofy. It’s a small little window into someone’s life. I think that’s the kind of stuff that builds connections. It makes you feel a little closer to people and again, and pragmatically speaking, the closer we are, the tighter community is, the more we want to support each other.

Miki: Do you feel like your blog has gone through that same transition of you opening up more and being more yourself?

 

David: When I started blogging, I remember writing something like, “I don’t know if anyone’s ever going to read this, but it will be a nice place to document my journey as I come back to photography.” So right from the beginning, the goal was not to create some thing with an audience, the goal was just expression.

Communication, you need an audience for. Expression, you can be in an empty room. And I think that was kind of the point for me. Just to journal it, to get it out there. So it’s always been pretty open and I’ve never kept anything hidden except really personal stuff.

Being authentic creates connections. And it’s all relationships, it’s just in a different kind of world. It happens through the keyboard and on iPads and laptops, but it’s still relationships. It’s reciprocity, it’s trust, it’s openness, it’s vulnerability.

There was this great TED Talk by Brené Brown on the power of vulnerability. It’s phenomenal. It’s nothing none of us knew, but she puts it into such a concrete sociological terms: vulnerability is a powerful thing. It’s just scary as hell sometimes.

I was in comedy for 12 years, and in comedy, you can either screw up on stage and pretend it never happened — and totally lose your audience — or you can screw up on stage and call the moment. When a joke falls flat, the funniest thing you can do is just recognize that the joke fell flat. Because we all feel like we’ve been there. The same is true in social media: You screw up? You fess up, you make a joke about it, you apologize, you move on. And I think that draws people in.

The more human we make ourselves, the deeper those connections can be. And I think, even if none of this ever makes a penny for anyone, that’s the ultimate reward. We have an opportunity to put our work in front of more people than ever would have seen Shakespeare’s plays in his lifetime. You share the work that you create, which is for most of us why we create it, and you build community and connections. What else is there?

Miki: The big thing I hear is, people are worried it will take a lot of time to be as engaged as they need to be. Do you think that’s true?

David: I don’t think it is. I think you can be very engaged, very high-touch, very warm, very human, without being the guy that sits across the dinner table and is always checking his email and twittering while you are trying to have a conversation.

If you’re comfortable with the technology, when you have a moment, you can just pop open Twitter on your iPhone and create a little tweet. I mean, it’s only 140 characters. It’s only when you think, “Oh my gosh, I have to blog today and I have to tweet today,” when you make it a big to-do items, that it becomes a little intimidating.

Is it time-consuming to maintain a friendship with your best friend?

If you ask me, is it time-consuming to maintain a friendship with your best friend? No, it’s not time-consuming, because we want to fit it in. Now blogging, I do make sure to get it in a couple times a week if I can. But for me twittering, it’s quick. I sort of launch it to see what conversations are going on, I check in, type out a quick little reaction or retweet something. It’s more conversational. I don’t think most of us would say, oh, I don’t have time for conversations.

You’ve got to find your strengths. If you don’t want to blog and all you want to do is Twitter, then you look at Twitter as an ongoing microblog. It’s still a place that people will come to to hear little bits and pieces and connect with you. If writing’s not your thing, do a video blog or a podcast.

I have a friend Matt Brandon, who does a similar style of photography. I don’t think he’d mind me saying, he’s not a naturally talented writer. What he is good at is audio. So rather than force a square peg into a round hole, he’s just mostly doing video blogging. He also does these Depth of Field podcasts that are unbelievable. Or look at Gary Vaynerchuk, who sort of admits in his book Crush It that he can’t write, but his video podcasts are great.

Not everyone needs a blog or Twitter. It’s a powerful tool, so give it a try. But if you don’t like it, don’t force yourself. Because it’s going to come out. It’s like with me and Facebook. I hate Facebook, so as a result, I don’t post as often to it, I don’t respond as quickly. Anyone that’s watching would pick that up pretty quick. Twitter, on the other hand, I love. I just hate saying it. I hate saying I’m going to tweet you. But it’s better than saying I’m going to poke you.

Miki: Tell me about your eBooks and the Light & Vision online bookstore. Are eBooks profitable?

David: The eBooks are always $5 or less on my site, and last year we sold somewhere around 80,000 of them. Now, I have other authors, designers, a manager, so that’s not $400,000 in my pocket, but the numbers are certainly great.

The first book: I was in Thailand with my buddy Henry, who sells software, and he said, “David you’ve got to get some kind of eBook or something.” I said, I’ve seen eBooks; they’re white papers with lots of highlighting and underlining and they’re all written in courier and just shoot me now.

But he said, David, we’re sitting on this pier in Thailand eating Pad Thai, and I’m making money right now. When I go to sleep tonight, I’ll wake up in the morning and I will have made money. Because people are buying my code. But you have to BE somewhere to make money. If you want to make money on an assignment in Kenya, you have to go to Kenya. You always have to be there, so you’re limited.

I came home and I started thinking, if I could do eBooks my way … I also had intended to learn InDesign, so I gave myself an eBook as a project, because I don’t learn very well unless I have a deliverable. It took me about three days start-to-finish, and when it was done I thought, huh, I’ve got an eBook.

I found a way to sell it online, and I posted it on my blog, and damned if people didn’t start buying it. And then I thought, this is too good not to see if it can’t be done a second time. The first one was called Ten, the second one was called Ten More. I don’t think I’ve since become much more creative with my titles. But people kept buying it.

Soon I realized this is the reason people buy photography magazines, but without all the ads. It was great, big, glossy photographs that could be downloaded and shared. We don’t use any digital rights management, so you can print it, you can email it to someone, you can put it on five devices. And I found I really like putting them together. Then once a couple of them started doing well, I invited some others. My buddy Dave Delnea wrote one called Below The Horizon that did really well. And the whole thing has kind of steamrolled.


23 Comments

  1. April 5th, 2011 at 8:56 am

    Brian

    Great article!

    I’m struggling with social networking. I do it- blog, twitter, Facebook, but can say I have got absolutely nothing from it business wise. And I guess when it comes to business why do something if your business doesn’t get anything from it?

    Sure I’ve had many “conversations”, but I can say, like David, that it has improved my career. I’m not saying it can’t, I just don’t know if it ever will.

  2. April 5th, 2011 at 9:07 am

    Cindy Brown | Atlanta Wedding Photographer

    Great points about the sociability of Social Media.
    And I love the ebook idea.
    Do you have a way of protecting your photos from being used beyond personal use?

  3. April 5th, 2011 at 9:14 am

    heather elder

    What a fantastic interview. Thank you for sharing your insights. I agree with everything you are saying.

  4. April 5th, 2011 at 10:03 am

    Ingrid

    Love this and agree completely.

  5. April 5th, 2011 at 12:01 pm

    Stephanie Lebond

    Can you suggest additional resources on creating and publishing meaningful eBooks?
    Thanks!!

  6. April 5th, 2011 at 12:42 pm

    Bob Stevens

    Wow…as someone not new to the biz (30+ years) but new to social media, I really appreciate your candor. Sarcasm is a virtue…:0)

    Thanks David!

  7. April 5th, 2011 at 1:04 pm

    Alan Majchrowicz

    Thanks so much for this interview. I’ve been feeling very down about my business results lately and this really helped inject some life back in me. The following line really encouraged me. “Everything I’ve gotten professionally has come through my social media involvement — without exaggeration or exception, literally everything,”

  8. April 6th, 2011 at 11:10 am

    Corey Lesh

    Great read, thanks so much!

  9. April 6th, 2011 at 11:44 am

    Michael S. Wade

    Great article full of sound tips and advice. Love the honesty and clarity.

  10. April 6th, 2011 at 2:09 pm

    Thor Swift

    Thank you for this article and the link to the TED video. Until a month or so ago I hated facebook, did not think it was worth me wasting time with. I did have a blog, but it was mostly me talking at people about recent jobs etc. After a month of using Facebook and Twitter I can not say any work has come from it, but it is bringing me so much more interest.

    This article has totally fired me up. I just wrote a long blog post and have written down fifteen more for future posts.

    Thank you

  11. April 6th, 2011 at 5:25 pm

    David duChemin

    Brian, thanks for the comment. I think you may have identified the problem with your last comment – the fact is people are not drawn to salesmen. If your motive is simply -and only – to build your business, people won’t be pulled towards you. People care about themselves, about what you can give them, not what you can sell them. I wanted to build a community. Yes, I hoped it would reward me down the line, but I had assignment work to pay my bills. What I did was honest, and for me – a lot of fun. But when you do things primarily to chase the money or build the business, it’s a much longer road and with fewer rewards. Counter-intuitive, but I suggest you first identify your passion, write about those things in your own unique voice, and in a way that serves your audience, and only then start thinking about ways you can monetize it without losing that audience.

    Hope that makes sense. yes, we do this for business, but it’s worked best for me when I operate from a desire to simply serve others, whether or not they ever buy an eBook. My blog and Twitter feeds are the heart of that. I connect. I deliver solid content. Once in a while I tell them about an eBook – which also happens to be ridiculously cheap. See where I’m coming from. Chase the money and it may never happen because people want to be friends, not a “market”.

  12. April 6th, 2011 at 5:28 pm

    David duChemin

    Stephanie – To be honest, I’m just making this up as I go. I started doing it all myself in InDesign and porting out to PDF, then started working with a developer who does the iPad apps, and eventually hired one, then two layout guys. But we’re just faking it till we make it. :-) We play around with the technology a little but mostly it’s an easy process of writing solid books with great photographs, doing old-school layouts that look good on the laptop and iPad, and then telling the world.

  13. April 6th, 2011 at 5:34 pm

    Cynthia Held

    An interesting read and an interesting perspective. Thanks for taking the time to write it. And Heather, thank you for bringing it to our attention – on FB :)

  14. April 7th, 2011 at 7:24 am

    Tom Guffey

    David,
    Great stuff. I read the interview twice, to make sure I didnt miss any words of the wisdom, the first time thru. Being an older guy, just getting into twitter and social media, all the info was very helpful. I’ve often thought about the e-book route, but wasnt sure where to even start.
    Hope all is well north of the border.
    Again, thanks and take care.
    Tom

  15. April 7th, 2011 at 7:53 am

    Martin Beebee

    Great interview. It really tweaks the current view of how to use social media for marketing — back to basics. May not work for a retail store, but much more appropriate for the artist.

  16. April 9th, 2011 at 9:26 pm

    Bas

    excellent article. I think so many creative folks either use social media really well or miss opportunities (I fall into the latter category).

  17. April 10th, 2011 at 5:27 pm

    tony

    I am an event shooter, mostly hockey. do you think a league book of the best photos from a team or tournament would sell? I think it just may! I would obviously have to pick only the best, but I shoot thousands a week. What program do you use? Great work, thanks!
    actionphotos.net

  18. April 25th, 2011 at 10:01 pm

    David Larsen

    A friend who has met David sent me this link. Great article. Really helpful to enable me to get social networking. Things have been gelling slowly, but this has helped to solidify my understanding. Thanks!

  19. April 27th, 2011 at 6:54 pm

    My Approach To Twitter – Fernando Gros

    […] me. For a more thought out answer on how to approach Twitter, check out this great interview with David du Chemin – Stop Selling, Start Connecting (incidentally, David had a bad fall while working Italy, updates here and here). “You would never […]

  20. April 27th, 2011 at 9:08 pm

    Deanne

    This is a great post and one of the best I’ve read about social networking. I love the honesty about being real.

  21. July 20th, 2011 at 12:23 pm

    Hi, Social Media, nice to meet you | HEY MIKI

    […] Stop Selling, Start Connecting “You would never walk into a room and, without introducing yourself, assume that everyone wants to hear about your latest greatest thing would you? Most of us will spend time actually listening to people, finding out who they are, and gaining their trust before we try to sell them our AmWay products. Just because it’s technology, that doesn’t give you carte blanche to abuse people with your sales pitches.” […]

  22. August 17th, 2011 at 9:16 am

    Social Getworking Part 2 – The Missing Panelist « APA San Francisco

    […] Stop Selling, Start Connecting The resume is dead, the bio is king What is a brand? “Why” not “What” Press Releases for Bloggers Trust Agents (Trust Economies e-Book) […]

  23. March 10th, 2012 at 4:40 am

    Free people find true success « The humanitarian and cultural photography of Atlanta-based assignment photographer Joe Murray

    […] Stop selling and start connecting-An interview with David Duchemin about the use of Social Media. […]

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