Social nOtworking…
…or how to spend half your life wasting your time.
So finally I came across someone writing a blog post that sums up my feelings about photographers and social media.
Paul Melcher over at Thoughts of a Bohemian wrote in his post A Bird’s Eye on his thoughts about the subject. Hallelujah, someone has finally written about the King’s New Clothes.
Spookily enough I was going to write something similar about a week ago, but got side-tracked with something else. Now what was it? Oh yes – WORK!
Look, I understand that most businesses need to participate in the whole Social Media thing. Blogs are almost De rigueur nowadays for most people, shit, I even have one. Actually, you know that, you’re reading it.
Indeed, some of my clients have the whole gamut of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter et al going on. That’s fine, because they are B2C businesses.
Photographers though? OK, let’s take wedding photographers out of the equation, maybe there is an exception to be made there. They are, after all, B2C as well.
In the spirit of having an objective and balanced view (you know, those of you who think you are perfect are annoying to those of us who are), I recently attended a seminar on social media, just to make sure I wasn’t missing something obvious by not getting involved with being a Twit, or is it a Twat? This was given by probably the most acknowledged social media expert in the country, and although it was all very interesting, nothing that was said changed my mind that (for me) it would all be a complete waste of time, that I don’t have.
I had a Facebook account and I closed it. I use LinkedIn, which is sadly under-used in this country. That’s it. I maintain my blog. I try to blog twice a week, usually Monday & Thursday, and that’s only possible because I can schedule posts with Wordpress and usually have 2/3 blogs ready in advance and they are automatically posted at the due time. Then, when I do have a quiet few hours I can review the headlines of drafts I’ve created and “fluff-out” the rest of the post. Right now I have about 10 headlines written, and not enough time to fluff them out.
The rest of the time I have nothing to say. Twats it appears have nothing to say, but insist on proving it to the rest of us.
There are some photographers that use all the social media effectively, but there is only so much room in the world for photographer social media pathfinders like Joe McNally, Chase Jarvis and David Hobby. What they do, they do very well, and have a huge following, but we don’t all need to follow blindly along and blog/face/twit everything we are doing. These guys are exceptional and have interesting things to say and share, although I’m not too sure I subscribe to all the “share the love” guff the aforementioned photographers expound. They do it very well, but they’re not giving you the benefit of their experience and sharing insider secrets just to make you a better photographer. It’s all marketing. By “sharing the love” they are all actually selling B2C. They “share the love” because they are all selling “how to” DVD’s, books, seminars, workshops…. Share the love, me arse.
The rest of us? Guys, I hate to tell you, but we just aren’t doing anything anywhere-near interesting enough to be Twatting about. IF I came across twots along the lines of “I’m embedded with the lads in Helmund Province and we’re on patrol – Jesus those RPG rounds are getting close” or perhaps “Just getting into the Coast Guard chopper and we’re off to an oil tanker on fire 200 miles off the West Coast – watch for the images on my blog tomorrow”, THEN I might start to get interested in the whole thing.
More locally however, such priceless gems as I found recently, one concerning someone’s travel delay in London on the way back from holiday, and the other concerning someone’s end-of-exercise and imminent ablutions, will certainly enable me to sleep easy in my bed tonight, knowing that the photographic world is safe in their hands.
Lads, lads, really. Twut that you’ve posted some new images on your website, or that you have made some interesting comment on your blog. Forget the banal crap you’re pumping out at the moment because I don’t actually give a damn and I’m sure no-one else does either. Do you really think your clients or potential clients are enthralled? Get over yourselves.
Twits & Twats are Twottering & Twuttering to each other it seems. In the same vein as Fluckr and photo-forums, where an image or posting results in a multitude of oohs and aahs and “Cool” “Awesome” “Great shot” comments, most of the Twettering seems to be from photo-twets to photo-twets. The fact you’ve just been to the bathroom, got home, or the traffic seems to be heavy this morning in (insert any city/town/village here) is of no interest to most of mankind.
So is it all just a big ego trip then? Apart from your sycophantic group of followers, most of whom would follow a lost-drunk wandering down the road, why are you enlightening us all with the information if it’s not driving your business forward? Do you really think you are that interesting? If it does drive your business forward then pray tell as I always reserve the right to change my mind, especially if I’m proved wrong.
Besides I’ve just put on a load of “whites” in the washing-machine and shortly I’ll be watching the football on TV, and I’m sure a potential client out there somewhere needs to know those two priceless pieces of information.
Social Media – It’s the King’s New Clothes I tell you.
TTFN
