Before Jason Aten gave himself completely to photography, he worked in sales and marketing for a “little company called FedEx.” It’s no surprise, then, that he has built his own workshop series teaching business principles to photographers, as well as a thriving wedding and portrait photography business. Social Media has been an important tool in keeping both businesses strong and growing. During our conversation Jason shared many important insights, including why you need to get to know your funnel and how to tell if you and your blog “need to talk.”

Photo by Jason Aten

Miki Johnson: Tell me about your Starting Out Right business classes for photographers, which you launched recently with an independent website and blog. What has been your strategy for social media, starting basically from the ground up?

Jason Aten: It was completely predicated on putting up a blog with a bunch of free resources and figuring out how to drive traffic to it through communities that already existed, like forums, Facebook, and especially Twitter.

The first thing I knew was that no one would read the blog or care about it if there wasn’t valuable content there. Most people have a hard time putting up valuable content if no one’s reading it — but no one will read it if there’s not valuable content there.

Even the first person who comes to your blog is going to want to feel like it’s been there for a while. I probably posted 10 posts, one a day, before I told anyone the Starting Out Right blog existed. If they come and just see a post that says, welcome to my new blog, they’ll never come back. Because if they don’t get engaged the first time they come, they’re not going to bookmark it or subscribe to your feed.

Then I knew, doing the kind of workshop I was doing, it wasn’t like some famous person finally deciding to do a workshop; most of the people who needed this wouldn’t know who I was. So the blog also provided credibility.

From a business standpoint, where we really make money is when we do a workshop, or when someone purchases a book or eBook. But to get anyone to consider coming to a workshop or buying a resource, they had to feel like I know what I’m talking about and I’ve already shared a lot of valuable content.

I posted consistently for two months before ever saying we were doing a workshop. We had people reading on a regular basis, and then suddenly it was almost as if they asked, hey, do you have more? It was the perfect time to say, yes, I have more!

MJ: How does the online strategy differ for your wedding business?

JA: For Facebook and Twitter, I had to decide, what’s my objective? I decided I was going to use them to do two things: 1) drive people to articles on the blog to look at their friends’ wedding photos, and, 2) while they’re there, we want them to make some sort of decision, either going to the online gallery to buy a print or contacting us because they want us to shoot something for them.

On one side, Twitter and Facebook are a portal to drive people towards where we wanted them to engage. And then the other side is, both Twitter and Facebook allow you to continue the conversation with a large number of people on an almost no-risk basis. You use Twitter to drive people to come to the blog and read something, and then they have question that you answer on Twitter. It helps them get in the funnel, and then helps them stay, because it is the easiest way to engage with people.

Photo by Jason Aten

MJ: Tell us more about “the marketing funnel” and how it applies specifically to social media.

JA: The top of our funnel is Twitter or Facebook. That’s probably where we engage with the largest number of people. It’s interesting that of 1,100 Twitter followers and 1,100 Facebook friends, there’s only about 250 of those that are the same. Which I like, and it’s why we think of them as two different audiences.

Then we give that group free stuff: the blog. You don’t really make any money off that level of people, except you have the opportunity to convert them to the next level of the funnel where you have the five- to ten-page white paper on business or marketing or some topic. Maybe those cost $10. For us those are easy because I can sell a billion of them and it’s no more  work than selling one. That’s the number one transaction we have in terms of volume because it’s inexpensive and it’s easy for us to scale.

The next level from that would be the book. That was more work on our part, so it’s more expensive, and fewer people are going to buy it. After that you have a lot fewer people who will pay to come to a workshop, for example, but they’re paying a lot more money. Then at the very bottom of the funnel would be one-on-one consulting where we spend 2-3 days with a business. So you use the top of the funnel to get people in and then you get people to move down the funnel.

It’s the same with our photography business. Our blog and Facebook is the top of the funnel, where all the guests from the wedding come and look at those images. Then some of them will click on the gallery and purchase something. And then some of those people will actually contact us and book us to shoot something.

There may be fewer layers with weddings, but it’s the same idea. You want to attract as many people as you can to the top, because if you need 50 people to come out the bottom, you have to get 1,000 in the top. That’s just the way it works. Most of us think, I need 50 workshop attendees, so I need 50 people. Well, no. Part of knowing how the funnel works is understanding how many people you need at the top to get 50 people out the bottom.

MJ: Let’s talk about weddings. How do you use social media there?

JA: When we market to clients we focus mostly on Facebook since Twitter tends to be more industry people. The goal for Facebook is to get them to the blog, and to engage when they get there. We really wanted the blog to be a place they could share their friend’s story, and then make a decision about going deeper, either going to the gallery and looking at all the images, or contacting us to get more information for their own photography.

We also wanted the blog to be a place where people felt like they could get to know me, personally. About half of my weddings, I don’t meet the client until I do their engagement session or I show up at their wedding, so there had to be a way for people to reduce that barrier. On Facebook, I post pictures of my kids more than pictures from clients, mostly because, as a guy, having two cute little girls let’s people know I’m harmless and helps me relate to brides. And I want to make it as easy for them to feel comfortable with me as possible.

MJ: How about using Facebook specifically?

JA: We post a gallery, normally 10-15 images on the blog and 20-30 on Facebook. On Facebook we post images we would never post on our blog. We want to include a bridesmaid shot because I can tag every bridesmaid, or one with all the guys smoking cigars. Maybe it’s not something I would ever put in my portfolio, but it’s an opportunity to tag people.

So we tag the bride and groom, who we’re hopefully friends with, and send them an email that says, you’ll notice we’ve tagged you in some images. Please feel free to tag anyone else you think would like to see them. We kind of put the ball in their court and let them run with it.

I used to wonder how other wedding photographers got so many comments on their blogs. I don’t know why I cared except if people weren’t leaving comments, it’s hard to know they were there. Some friends of mine said, we offer the client something for free if they get a certain number of comments.

We might offer the client a free print, which is pretty low-cost for us, and it makes the client the evangelist. Suddenly our clients are posting on Facebook saying, please go to this link and tell us how much you love the photos. Then some of those friends who might never have made it past Facebook, they see not only their friend’s wedding, and comment, but then most of those people go and look at other events and offerings. It brings them deeper into the funnel.

Photo by Jason Aten

MJ: You also talked about being part of a private photographers Facebook group and using forums to drive traffic to your blog. Do you feel like you get a payback when you put effort into those kinds of groups?

JA: My philosophy in a forum or group, is I want to earn credibility by adding value with no strings attached. Then when you have something that has strings attached, people are much more receptive.

A forum I spend a lot of time in is the Pictage Forum; I call it the “friendly forum.” I have a lot of genuine friends I’ve met there, and as a result I work really hard to try to help people there. I know if I post something about a workshop there, people will go, we like this person, we trust this person, he’s shown he’s an expert on this, and they respond accordingly. Same thing is true with the group on Facebook. If you spend some time helping people or answering questions, it’s really an easy way to establish credibility.

MJ: Can we talk a little about your book and eBook and how you’re promoting it on social media?

JA: The book was originally written as a workbook that goes along with our workshop. I spent some time filling in the blanks because, obviously, if you come to the workshop you get a lot of information as dialogue. The idea was always that it would be available as a physical product. Then, it was probably Seth Godin who inspired me, I thought, why not also make it available electronically? That requires no extra work for me.

I try to position the book as, you can have all of it for free, but have to do all the work on your own. Or you can pay for the book. When I speak publicly, at the end of my talk I say, all this information is on the blog for free. If you want it more organized, with a bunch of resources and worksheets, here’s the book. It’s reasonably priced and provides all the content from a two-day workshop. Or you can come to the workshop if you want to talk about it. I haven’t pushed it a lot on social media, but we did run a $39 special eBook deal on Twitter and it was huge. Once we are done with workshop season, it will be easier for me to spend more time promoting the book.

You can spam people on Twitter and Facebook just like with email, and I definitely don’t want to do that. If I post something about a workshop, I can almost guarantee it would be a week before I would post about our book. When we send out an email to our database of 2,500 photographers, every time I send something out, I am heartbroken when someone unsubscribes. Not because I didn’t sell something to them, but because it wasn’t relevant to them, so I no longer get to send them anything. It’s the same thing when I send something on Facebook or Twitter it’s the same. If this is irrelevant, they might stop following, and I’ll never know about it, but I’ve now lost the opportunity to have any conversation with them.

Photo by Jason Aten

MJ: What do you do to assess and measure the success of your social media strategy?

JA: I’m an economics guy, so I’m a huge measuring guy, that matters to me a ton. If I’m looking at my website, I want to know how someone got here, what they did when they got here, where they live, etc.

For instance, I posted on our blog the other day and views spikes. Let’s say 45% came from Facebook and 55% came from Twitter. I’m trying to figure out why. Turns out Facebook actually imported the whole post into a note, so readers didn’t have a reason to click over to the blog. Which makes me think, I don’t want my blog posts to import to Facebook, because I can’t track it. Tracking helps me understand my different audiences. For example, when we announced an upcoming workshop in Michigan, I posted it on Facebook, because I knew I was connected to more people in Michigan there than on Twitter.

MJ: Could you give me some details on the difference you perceive between your Facebook and Twitter audiences?

JA: For me, Facebook is mostly people I know in the real world and clients or people who might be looking for photography. The interesting thing is, we do have a business Facebook page, but I don’t spend any effort on it, because, if my goal is to show people images and let them get to know me, what better place to do that than my personal Facebook page?

I know a lot of people struggle with, well, I wouldn’t want potential clients to know this about me; it’s like, then maybe that shouldn’t be true about you. So the Facebook appeal is it’s authentic and transparent. If you’re constantly worried about filtering that, it loses the authenticity.

Twitter was more where I was interacting with other industry people, like wedding planners, or other photographers I didn’t necessarily know and I wanted to engage about our business offerings. I’ve noticed people will become a Twitter follower first, and then later will become a friend on Facebook after we’ve gotten to know them.

Twitter helped me expand my sphere of influence. For instance, I went to Imaging USA in San Antonio, and a photographer I really respected but didn’t know was going to be there. Twitter made it really easy to say, great, I’ll be there too, let’s get coffee. But I never would have called that person.

When I moved back to Michigan in 2007, I started following planners on Twitter. It really easy to say, hey, great to see that wedding you did that was featured in some magazine. I’d love to buy you lunch and learn more about your business.

People start to trust you when there is consistency and time. Twitter is a way to have conversations over time. It’s much less threatening than picking up the phone. If I just want to send someone a casual note, I’ll send them a Twitter message; if it’s a little more important, I’ll send them an email. You have to know someone to call them.

MJ: You mentioned that you had too many blogs at one point, and ended up breaking your own rule of always posting regularly. Can you share any lessons you learned from that?

JA: The reason we ended up with four or five blogs was that we were intentionally segmenting our audience. So our signature wedding, the ones I shoot, the only thing I wanted on that blog would be the wedding I shoot and then personal stuff about me and my family. I didn’t want what my associates’ shots there and I didn’t want high school seniors, for example.

So we moved all our associates stuff and lifestyle sessions to a completely different website, brand, blog, everything. But then we shot 110 seniors! I couldn’t blog all of them, are you kidding me? And with high-school students, if you blog more than three photos, you won’t make any sales. We just didn’t have a good strategy.

Then for the Starting Out Right, we were very intentional about putting it somewhere else, because I did not want my wedding clients to feel like I was selling their secrets or anything like that. It’s good for them to know their photographer is considered an expert on something, but I did not want them worried I’d talk about them in workshops.

And I wanted people who came to the business side to understand, this is a place where you learn about running the business of photography. I didn’t want those posts mixed with one on album design. I wanted to be judged on business not the photos there.

If the whole point of a blog is to engage people, it’s kind of like if you have a marriage but you never come home. I was dating too many blogs, and I didn’t have a good relationship with them any more. Now we’re moving toward all our blogs being managed within the same interface and space to make everything a lot easier. We want to maintain the individuality of the brands, but also make it sustainable.

First Things First

When we are defining our company’s branding identity, we often create a design based on our preferences.  We like red and such our identity becomes a red logo.  Or, the trend color is turquoise and the website becomes turquoise.  The problem with creating branding identity based on these preferences is that it is built on the surface of a business.  This type of identity doesn’t represent what runs deep in our business.

Building Your Brand

Want to build a strong brand that best represents your business?  Sit down and define the following:

• What is your mission statement?
• Who are you?  What is your business about?
• What are you values and your company’s values?
• What do you want to be known for?
• What is your specialty?

From here, work to define the identity that will draw people to your company.  Powerful identity will work to link the customer’s eye with your business inside and out.

Go Beyond Branding Identity

Branding is so much more than your logo, website, and stationery.  It is in the way you answer the phone, the way you dress for a meeting, the way you present your porfolio.  Branding that is carried through all aspects of your business will create a consistent experience for your customer.  It is this consistent experience that makes your brand strong.  These factors are what makes a brand become instantly recognizable and highly valuable.

Wanna learn more?  Visit Sage Wedding Pros’ blog for more on mission statements, values, and branding.

Not even sure what a ‘brand’ is in the context of your solo career? Put simply, it’s the way you present yourself to your clients.

1. Know yourself.

The foundation of a strong personal brand is, well, a strong sense of self. What are your strengths? What makes you stand out from the crowd? What kind of work do you enjoy/prefer/aspire to? What’s your vision for the future of your business? They’re not easy questions, but having clear answers to them will help you define your personal brand and position it for success.

2. Know your target audience.

Branding is a form of communication, so as in any conversation, it’s crucial to understand who it is you’re talking to. What sorts of clients, products and industries would you like to work for, and what do they need to succeed? How can you deliver it? Tailor your messages and visuals to speak to the people you most want to reach, and you’ll be much more likely to hear from them.

3. Be authentic.

The most successful brands are authentic brands. It’s important to position yourself in line with your interests and future goals, but ‘faking it ‘til you make it’ will only take you so far. If you oversell your capabilities, you risk falling short of the expectations you’ve set. Plus, people are perceptive. If your brand doesn’t ring true, chances are your phone’s not going to, either.

4. Take advantage of your toolbox.

Logo, color, layout, words, and of course, your work: these are the tools in your toolbox. Take advantage of all of them to build your brand, and use your personal vision as the metric for deciding how to use them. Now that you’ve got a liveBooks site, consider hiring a good designer to help you figure out the rest. See our blog post on Getting Great Design for advice on a smooth design process.

5. Be strategic.

Once you’ve got your brand in place, make sure people can find it! Consider all the ways you might reach your target audience. Use your networks, both real (professional associations, events, competitions, publications) and virtual (Facebook, LinkedIn,Twitter, blogs). Reach out to dream clients. And perhaps most importantly, follow a few simple steps to drive traffic back to your liveBooks site.

6. Be consistent.

Your clients interact with your brand all over the place: your website, blog, email, in-person meetings, product delivery, billing…the list goes on and on. Wherever possible, make sure your brand looks and feels the same every time your clients touch it. That means business cards, newsletters, email signatures, thank-you notes, invoices and everything else you use should work together to reinforce your brand. See our Partners page for resources.

7. Be consistent.

Build it, (consistency that is) and they will come.

8. Be consistent.

No really. It’s secretly rule #1.

9. Maintain a dialogue.

Every time you finish a new project, participate in a conference or competition, or achieve a personal milestone, you have an excuse to start a new conversation. Take advantage of these opportunities to bring people back to your brand.

10. Refresh as necessary.

As I’ve tried to say already, consistency is key. But every brand can use a little refresh from time to time. (We’re talking every couple years here.) It ensures that your brand feels contemporary and gives both you and your clients an opportunity to re-engage.

Coming soon – your guide to your online/offline brand strategy.

1) Have you got enough completed material?
Patience is a virtue when it comes to promoting a new body of work. It’s really important not to start approaching potential exhibition spaces or sponsors if you have not got a strong idea about the direction the work is taking.

Provide a good visual representation along with a written description – it is likely you will only get it in front of people once, so don’t waste the opportunity, or their time, on something half-baked.

2) Think about how to explain your project concisely both verbally and in writing.
Even with an agent or gallery, individual practitioners need to be self-reliant when it comes to promotion. The more established you are the easier it becomes to get ‘buy-in’ from people at an early stage of a new project, however, being able to communicate your idea well and with confidence is SO important.

a) Verbally
Think about how you can best explain your latest work in a couple of snappy sentences. It’s all about planting the seed of your idea in other people’s minds, so KEEP IT SIMPLE.

b) Writing
When it comes to writing about a new body of work for submission to a gallery, a page of text with between 250 to 500 words is enough. Not everyone finds writing easy, so you may want to think about collaborating with someone who you feel is sympathetic to your project to help you articulate it.

3) Research your Audience
It is always helpful to step back from your project and think about what your work offers a particular audience or gallery space as well as vice versa.

If you want to get an idea of the types of exhibition venues available, the best sources are listings in creative magazines or websites relating to your medium. Look at the types of work already on show in a particular venue and whether your project fits into that context.

4) Conventional promotional routes prior to exhibition
There are various ways that you can get a new project noticed.

a) Competitions
Submitting your work into online, magazine or exhibition-based competitions when it is at a point where you have text and a strong selection of work is a good way to get acknowledgement and promotion for your project.

b) Portfolio Reviews
On the photography circuit portfolio reviews provide a good opportunity to put a completed project in front of a wide selection of professionals. Look at sites such as Rhubarb-Rhubarb in Birmingham, UK, Houston Fotofest, USA, and PhotoEspana, Spain.

c) Exhibition Packs
Most conventional spaces have regular scheduling meetings for their exhibitions. If you are promoting your work to these types of spaces you should produce a postable A4 or US Letter sized pack for your project along with, or rather than, a CD of your work (that can be easily set aside or lost). Your pack should contain the following items:

• Selection of images – don’t give the whole game away so 10 should be sufficient.
• Text on your project – as discussed above this can be 250 to 500 words.
• CV/Biography

Finally, remember that you are working in a visual context so the presentation pack design and layout are important as well as the content.

5) Create your own audience
As well as website portfolio’s, individual practitioners are increasingly turning to the web to create communities around new projects as they develop.  This can be done through Facebook and Twitter or by creating your own project website.

6) Be creative about the potential venues or the presentation
Galleries offer ready-made infrastructures for promotion of the work in their exhibition schedules but there are so many other arenas for exhibitions these days.

Think about the subject matter of your work and how best to reach an engaged audience – lots of different institutions have wall space that can be turned over to exhibitions, lots of unconventional locations can be hired for exhibition use.

Remember that an exhibition doesn’t mean framed prints, it can also be a poster show, outdoor banners, projections or online.

Consider teaming up with other creatives that may also be looking to exhibit material – together you may get the support and momentum that may make the difference between getting your work exhibited or not.

Frederick and John also discussed how liveBooks plans to advance along with the ever-changing world of technology that we are part of today – and what it all means to you as a liveBooks customer and a creative professional.

Interested in hearing more? Listen to John and Frederick in this podcast, which can be found on PixelCorps.tv.

The ‘8 Truths’ help guide you through the world of blogging, provide advice on how to leverage your blog to help grow your creative business and feature tips from influential bloggers in the creative community such as Vincent Laforet and David Airey.

From our survey results, it is clear that most of you experience frustration with how to approach blogging and our belief is that this then deters you from setting up your own blog.

Now, I know that you (like us) hate the idea of ’shameless self promotion’ – but I think this is one of those exceptions and you will be happy to learn that we now offer a solution to this problem with liveBooks Companion Blogs.  No longer is there any need to spend hours trying to find a template that ‘kind of’ looks like your website, or toil through the troubles of hosting your blog in cyberspace.

While this is an answer to just one of your blogging qualms, we know there are several other concerns you and thousands of other creative professionals face on a daily basis, which is why we encourage you to take a peek at our latest blogging report. Let us know what you think about the report. Do you agree with the truths? Do you have any truths to add to the mix?

If you want to read the paper in it’s entirety – follow this link and request the paper.

Miki Johnson: How did the idea for Photo Brigade come to you?

Robert Caplin: As a fairly new blogger myself, I’ve been learning the ins and outs of how to actually build a following and bring traffic to my personal blog. After months of research and good old trial and error, I found the best way to increase my traffic and find readers was by sharing my link by way of social media like Facebook, Twitter, and referring links or stories on other blogs, such as this one. I quickly realized that if I combined my Facebook and Twitter networks, I was suddenly reaching a much larger potential viewership, which only multiplied when someone else decided to share or re-tweet my link.

Suddenly, not only was I reaching thousands of people through my personal network, but I was also reaching the networks of those who were kind enough to share my link with their followers. The viral nature of social media can really work to the advantage of photographers to get their work seen by the masses. So it went to figure that if photographers as a whole worked together to build a vast shared network, all would benefit by the added traffic it would bring their websites and blogs…and that’s how the The Photo Brigade came to me.

MJ: How long did it take you to make it a reality?

RC: Not long actually. My original idea was to start a blog, but that would take a while to design (because I wanted to do it properly) and it would take time to actually build a following. It occurred to me that I could test the concept quite easily by simply making a Facebook Page where I could easily share direct links to the cool blogs I was reading and people could easily subscribe to the feed by becoming a fan.

I also started a Twitter account. Over the next week The Photo Brigade page gained hundreds of followers and within weeks had over a thousand. I should also mention that this happened completely unsolicited and 100% organically, proving how well social networking can get the word out. It was obvious that not only was there a desire for a service like this, but also a genuine need.

MJ: It seems like a lot of work for something you do on the side of your own photography business. What makes it worth it?

RC: Well, to be honest it has taken a good chunk of my time to build … but that was the hard part. I should also note that I worked with my wonderful designer Laia Prats to create the brand and build the blogs using custom templates she tediously tweaked and designed. I couldn’t have done it without her help!

Now that the blog has been designed and content has been uploaded, the rest is really quite simple. There’s no lack of amazing photography out there. Given that The Photo Brigade was built to promote the work of freelancers, those photographers have been happy to share their work. Also, with a number of shooters submitting work, it’s almost as though it’s running itself. As Photo Brigade grows, I’ll be implementing some really great tools and resources for photographers and editors alike … but you’ll have to stay tuned to see what those are!

MJ: What has the response been like so far, from contributors as well as viewers, especially editors?

RC: The response has been very positive! The website is receiving steady traffic and it’s growing by the day. The same goes for contributors. Everyday I’m receiving emails from photographers from around the world, some I know and others I’ve never heard of, sharing their latest blog posts of their work.

Editors are a little harder to track and gauge because they’re obviously not submitting work themselves, though I’ve received a number of emails from editors praising the blog. There are also editors and directors of photography from major media outlets who follow the Facebook feed.

MJ: How do you choose photographers to feature?

RC: The featured photographers have either submitted their work from the submissions page, or I’ve reached out to the them personally. Because we receive many submissions, not every submission is featured. The best way to be chosen is to have a blog, as our mission is to encourage blogging. In your blog post we’d like to see a number of strong images with a well written explanation about the photography. We will pull 2-3 images as well as take some of the copy and post it on Photo Brigade teasing the blog.

It’s also encouraged for the photographers to supply a Twitter account so we can plug their account when we tweet to our followers about the post. By doing so, we’ll raise awareness for the photographer, and also help build the photographer’s social network. Many are adverse to using Twitter, but it’s one hell of a marketing tool. It would be silly not to tap into the millions of Twitter users out there, many of whom are photo editors and image buyers. We’re all about viral marketing and social media — the more we link to other people, the more visibility our blog gets, which trickles down to the photographers we feature.

It’s important to note that photographers should not be discouraged a submission isn’t accepted. Please continue to submit whenever you have a post you feel is worthy!

MJ: You just added three university blogs. Why was that important and how do you see them growing?

RC: While I was answering these questions, we decided to start one more! My friend and fellow photographer Chip Litherland is helping me run the Colorado Photo Brigade, which will feature the University of Colorado at Boulder. I decided to branch out further and focus on universities because there are so many photography students producing amazing work on a daily basis. I figured I could use the same concept to create a community of students, alumni, and faculty to showcase the work coming from each school as well as former students.

Obviously I’m only a team of one, and don’t have time to moderate all these blogs and make a living myself, so I enlisted the help of eager students at each university who are closer to their classmates and can encourage them to blog. The regional branches also create a wonderful place for everyone to see the end product of what each institution is producing. Each post is tagged and categorized…so if you want to reference a particular class (photo 101) or search only for alumni work or just the class of 2002, you’ll be able to. Check out our regional blogs: Ohio, Missouri, and Rochester, all with their respective Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. Many more to come!

Blurb’s Photography Book Now competition has also launched its third year. In addition to $25,000, the grand prize winner will also be given the opportunity to show their work at ICP, the Annenberg Space for Photography, and the George Eastman House. The competition is a reminder of the potential of self-publishing, something we discussed extensively in our Future of Photobooks series.

Anantara Bophut Web Commercial from Mott Visuals on Vimeo.

Miki Johnson: Tell me about what you’ve been working on these days.

Justin Mott: My calendar has been pretty diverse since I began to organize and market my commercial work halfway through 2009. Getting my commercial work organized and branded has eaten up a huge chunk of my free time. Work in Vietnam is pretty diverse so you have to be able to do a little bit of everything.

My assignments over the last two months came from; German Red Cross, the United Nations, Forbes, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, three 5-star resorts, Microsoft, the World Health Organization, and the Smithsonian. I shot a wedding and I have been involved with a commissioned book project in Beijing and Shanghai about Chabad communities. I’m also working on my own book along with shooting a few other long-term personal projects.

The most lucrative has easily been the resort work because I’m able to sell packages of both stills and video. Commercial work simply pays more, a lot more, and in this region the market is expanding. I’m still searching for the right balance of commercial work and editorial but I completely love both in different ways.

Trangire Treetops. ©Mott Visuals

MJ: Tell me about this video you did for Anantara Bophut (above).

JM: I’ve built up a good relationship with a luxury line of resorts over the past year shooting stills for them. I’ve worked for them in Thailand and Tanzania shooting more than seven resorts.

I first pitched the video as an add-on for a stills shoot I was scheduled to do for them. It’s hard to pitch a product without a good example piece already, so I offered to do it for free, knowing the potential was huge.

I know many photographers get upset hearing things like that, but I wasn’t giving anything away. I was upfront about wanting to show them one piece in hopes of doing a series for them on an agreed price. Without having a strong piece to show them, I had to offer a preview instead. I was also confident that we could deliver them something they would be excited about.

My producer, Camille Faylona, scripted the story for them using stills as visual cues of what the final product might look like. In a face-to-face meeting we talked over the script and about pricing. We also discussed videos that had been done for them in the past and why they were unhappy with them. I was pitching them a different technique with a more TV-commercial feel and more of a story instead of just footage of their facility.

I shot the whole piece all on the Canon 5D Mark II, frequently using a Merlin Steadicam to give a first-person perspective. It’s a new process for me, so we figured a lot of things out on the fly, but overall everything worked out really well. That way I was also offering the client new technology. I could give a cinematic feel to the final piece at a fraction of the former price. They were extremely happy with the final product and we are now discussing a 6 resort video shoot.

Anantara Lawana. ©Mott Visuals

An important thing to realize about the pitch is, not only do you have to pitch the quality of the video, but you also have to help the client understand potential outlets for it. With stills they know how they are going to use them for their website, brochure, email promos, etc. For the videos you have to help them see the potential for more than just a video for their website. They can be used as web commercials on travel magazine websites, DVD’s for travel agents, in-room cross commercials, and more.

MJ: You said you see this part of your business’ growth in the future. In what ways and why?

JM: I feel like digital magazines are right around the corner, and with the iPad being released, the potential for video content demand is massive. Editorial and commercial clients need videos as their marketing outlets become more digital, so I see huge potential in both markets. I envision travel magazines doing videos more like a Discovery Channel piece, rather than just a slideshow of images. With new technology it’s affordable and not so intimidating for the photographer.

Video DLSR’s are still in the “wow” stage, and it’s easy to excite clients with their amazing footage when coupled with nice lenses. I’m not saying that the camera will do all the work, but the technology is rather revolutionary so it provides a great head start. Pretty soon it will be standard; but for now I plan to capitalize on this “wow” factor – the feedback so far has been extremely positive.

It also helps that we can offer  a one-stop production. Packages from Mott Visuals include stills and videos that have a similar style, so it’s one less thing for the client to worry about.

Anantara Phuket. ©Mott Visuals

MJ: Is this the first promo video you’d done with a DSLR? What did you learn from the process?

JM: This was our fist piece using the steadicam and time-lapse, so there was a learning curve to figure out how to use the device technically and stylistically. Plus the whole production process takes more time than with stills. We have to script the story before and get the client’s approval, then we  do the same at the end of shooting.

It’s also different because I’m working with a producer who has creative input, so we have two heads instead of one, which is good for video. I tend to think like a photographer; I want to leap from one thing to the next, while she reminds me we need to find a way to get there.

MJ: What else about this project was interesting or challenging for you?

JM: The challenge for me was not having a system in place yet like I do for stills. I know my “go to” shots for commercial shoots; after getting those I can experiment. For video I’m still fairly new, so I’m learning on the fly.

For me, transitioning has been the biggest challenge, making sure I visually lead the viewer from point A to point B. I’ve learned the value of a good producer who understands storytelling — and I also learned I need to pay her more so I don’t lose her.

The other challenge is how to market this work myself, online and through my agency, Redux Pictures. I’m still trying to figure out better ways than to simply include clips and trailers on my website and blog, but for now that is what we are limited to. Hopefully that will make for another blog post further down the road.

Miki Johnson: How did the idea for the Menuez Archive Projects arise?

Doug Menuez: After Stanford Library acquired my archive they began to preserve, research, and scan the 250,000 images from my Silicon Valley documentary project from the ’80s and ’90s. A few years ago they called and said their budget was cut and asked if I had any ideas for funding.

I was sitting on a couple hundred thousand model-released, timeless lifestyle advertising images that we’d often thought about doing something with, but I was always busy with assignment work. This was the catalyst. I was very lucky to meet an experienced and creative entrepreneur, David Mendez, and together we wrote a business plan around selling high-end stock to this growing niche in advertising. Amazingly, we managed to secure funding from investors despite the down economy.

MJ: Who do you imagine being the primary audience and/or buyers for the archive? What kind of imagery is it providing?

DM: Ad agencies seeking never seen before, intimate, emotionally-compelling moments from everyday life for high-end ad campaigns. We have been getting a lot of calls over the past few years as more big brand campaigns go to stock and creatives seek images that are more special and not so widely seen as what’s offered by the giant houses. We are a boutique and are bringing old fashioned research and service in our collaborations with creatives on their campaigns. You can search our archive easily, but you can also send your layouts and we will custom search and present the results to you.

We are including a lot of my personal documentary work that is released, and we just completed our first shoot in Miami, covering a wide range of stories, including a working mom, an afternoon with a Hispanic family, a teen house party, Parcours daredevils, an older boomer couple traveling, and much more.

What’s exciting is that we researched and found real stories of real lives, just as on any other personal project I do. These stories and images are therefore compelling and authentic, but also model released. We also have a variety of editorial material, some historical, some current, and we are selling limited edition prints of my fine art projects.

From the Menuez Archive Projects' first guest curated gallery, LOVE.

MJ: How does MAP fit in with your larger business plan?

DM: MAP is a huge breakthrough for me in that it allows me to develop all the work I’ve done over the years, and create revenue from material sitting in boxes. That new material from assignments and stock shoots will help me stay relevant and replenish the archive over time.

I have so many projects and images that it’s hard to finish any one thing. MAP will provide a platform to build on for the next phase of my career. That includes continuing to produce documentary projects, films, and books.

MJ: How do you plan to publicize your collection of images? Will they be indexed for online searches, for example?

DM: Yes, the images will be indexed through our own website, PACASEARCH and search engine optimization. We will also be using as many channels as possible to get the word out and are taking ads in Communcation Arts, doing direct mail, email blasts, Facebook and Twitter. But the most important will be our existing clients.

We have also partnered with my agents Stockland Martel to distribute a key selection of images and they have been very helpful getting the word out. Most of my advertising relationships go back years, and it’s nice to have a new resource to bring them to help them do their jobs. Our super-charming and talented sales and marketing director, Christopher Beauchamp, will be reaching out to creatives and art buyers directly to get feedback as we launch the site.

MJ: How many people are dedicated to managing MAP specifically in your studio?

We have built a fantastic team. Dave Mendez, our president, is in charge of operations and will manage our growth. The legendary picture editor Karen Mullarkey (Newsweek, SI, Rolling Stone) is doing the edit with stock industry veteran editor Lindsey Nicholson — an amazing duo.

We have brought back Josh Dick, a talented digital tech, and as I mentioned, Chris is doing sales and marketing. We have an attorney, Matt Riportella-Crose, who is vetting all our releases and usage rights, and we have an assistant editor, Cristina Faramo. Our multi-skilled studio manager Tobias Hutzler holds down the fort.

MJ: Did you create your own stock site or work with an archiving and sales provider? How did you make that decision?

DM: We decided to leverage the leading European stock agency distribution channel and site provider, PictureMaxx, rather than start from scratch. Our core is built on Apple Aperture, which uploads to PictureMaxx. We looked at all the solutions and they offered the broadest package, including CRM and a European network of agencies already participating in their marketplace. We plan on expanding worldwide so that was a key part of the decision.

Another big decision was where and how to scan. We were lucky and have found a fantastic partner in National Geographic. Although a bit more expensive than our original plan to scan in India, the quality is outstanding and being close by allows film to go back and forth by hand.

It’s important to repeat that I am continuing to shoot assignments, so it’s critical that my assignment web site remains vital and relevant. For that we found a fantastic solution, as you know, in liveBooks with our custom site. That has been very rewarding and exciting and we will also keep building on that.