Okay so this is a little change of pace… Usually when I blog about social media it’s the standard “5 ways to….” or “7 tips for….” or “the 6 best….” – some type of informative lesson with the perfect title designed to explode our SEO to Jupiter and make our blog the envy of every photography studio East (and West) of the Mississippi. Okay well maybe that hasn’t quite happened (yet) but one can dream…..right?

This time it’s a little different…

This is part 1 of what could be a series of streams of consciousness about social media as it relates to Frameable Faces, being a small business owner in general, or whatever else I feel like ranting about. It is a stream of consciousness after all, so who knows what I’ll say right? And just because there’s a part 1 doesn’t mean there will be a part 2 – that could depend on the response, so be sure to comment and share this post or lose this potential opportunity forever (see – when all else fails just scare them into sharing – that should work).

Facebook Fail?

I am a facebook power user. Have been for 5 years. Facebook has changed and I’ve blogged at length about how to navigate the changes. I practice the techniques I’ve preached when it comes to staying the course, but I will admit that I’m not perfect (HA) and yes occasionally I get a little annoyed at how facebook manipulates the user experience to generate money (this usually happens after I post something boring that no one shares). While you’ll normally find me preaching to stop whining about the facebook changes and create better content, I’m just being honest here – I do whine once in a while. Observe:

Text-only posts are getting the most reach right now by a mile for business pages. I had a text-only post on Friday get a 450 reach with no likes or comments. It was a dud and yet it still went out to almost half of our following. The following day I posted a link to a blog post I thought was a good one – no one agreed with me since no one commented and it only reached 93 – only slightly more than one fifth the reach of the text-only post. Then there’s the recent status of ours that contained a link to a blog post which got 25 likes and 9 comments and only reached 306. Oh yeah facebook – that’s really hilarious. Hahaha. Ugh. BUT – the other way of looking at this is that I’m okay with 306 people seeing a great post and a good percentage of them clicking on it and appreciating it. That’s a more successful post than a post that went to 450 that no one cared about. And if my other post that only went to 93 would have been more interesting then more than 93 people would have seen it. Remember to take accountability for your content. So you see how that goes? I have my moment of weakness, but then I right myself and get back on course creating the best content I can. That’s what happens in my head.

That said, I notice as an end user that my “most recent” items in my newsfeed aren’t recent at all. Sometimes the most recent is two days old – I can see how facebook is holding back the content I want to see, so I have to go find the info manually. Annoying.

Facebook Future?

This all makes me wonder about the future of facebook – it’s not as cool of a place as it used to be. Too much garbage, spam, memes, chains, links, etc. I just wish people would post a little bit less of that stuff and more of their own thoughts, and I wish brands would stop littering with salesy posts, crappy ads and specials begging for business. Sigh. Now I’m in no way thinking about jumping off the facebook bandwagon, but I’ve always been careful to make sure our eggs are never only in the facebook basket either….

Looking on the “plus” side of life….

I’ve actually been thinking about revisiting Google+. I’ve always thought it was a ghost town, but a very interesting thing happened on Scott Stratten’s blog recently where he ripped G+ for inflating their numbers based on total Google usage across all of their products and a lot of people ripped him in the comments… he defended himself for a while but eventually he posted an updated retraction when he was proven to have had a slightly incorrect reading of the numbers. Keep in mind that Scott Stratten is one of the baddest dudes in marketing in my opinion (he calls what he does UnMarketing) and whether it was just a technicality that prompted his retraction or if he is really softening his stance on G+, it was the visceral reaction by so many on his blog defending Google coupled with the changes on facebook that is making me look at adding G+ as a regular spot for us. I’ve referenced Scott here not to point out that he was wrong, but to point out that I think he is almost never wrong and this got my attention. The question now is how we might use G+. We mostly use social media platforms for one of two reasons:

1) The “age old” (at least a few years) social media criteria of be where your peeps are

2) We use the platform for a specific purpose – either for a certain kind of content (like Instagram is our behind-the-scenes platform) or maybe it’s a good place to get info (still our favorite use for twitter – not the only use, just our favorite). I don’t like to simply duplicate content and behavior on two different platforms (part of the reason we don’t automate from one platform to another).

So that leads me back to G+ where I suspect that there is some exploration to be done specific to photography – seems that some photogs/bloggers/hangout-ers are getting a lot out of it. It might be a good time to make some connections there if it’s really still growing. Disclaimer here – we actually have a G+ page for Frameable Faces and yes I have been posting links to new blog posts there, violating my own rule of not simply duplicating content. I only do it because it takes two seconds and early on people were saying to post there to help with SEO. Google is the #1 search engine after all. Is it helping? Who knows… But I do know that G+ is not likely to be going anywhere. We just got Google computers for our kids…. Google is a monster. Do you use G+? Personally? For your brand? What do you like about it? I really would like to know.

So there you have it…. a little bit of my mind in words…. fascinating right? Stay tuned…. 🙂

Our 5 Favorite Ways To Instagram!

February 23, 2013

by Doug Cohen

2 Comments

We love Instagram! For those of you still not familiar with this (it’s okay we won’t tell anyone) Instagram is a social media platform that enables its users to take pictures (generally with their smartphone), apply digital filters to them, and share them. As with all of the different social media platforms we use such as facebook, Pinterest, twitter, YouTube (just to name a few), Instagram has its own unique purpose for us. We generally do not use it to post examples of our work, but rather to post what happens behind the scenes at Frameable Faces. If you don’t use Instagram you can still see ours by going here.

Meanwhile we thought it would be fun to post 7 of our favorite Instagrams here representing 5 typical categories. We hope you enjoy them whether you are a Frameable yourself or another photographer/small business owner looking for ways to connect with your peeps.

1. Behind the scenes on a photoshoot

We love these – showcasing the process of creating the images is a lot of fun. It’s instant gratification since I can snap a quick shot of Ally photographing a high school senior for example with my smartphone and upload it right away while we’re still on location. Instagram also has a location map feature which uses the GPS stamp from the photo to create a map of locations where the images were produced. This way people following us can get ideas for where they want to take their photos by seeing where they were taken.

2. Happenings in the Orchard Mall

The Orchard Mall is our home and it is a very cool place with many other independent businesses and good eats. It’s a central meeting place in West Bloomfield and any time there is an event or even just beautiful new decorations we Instagram it.

Events:

Decorations:

3. Fun Shout Outs Just Because

We like to celebrate our community – our brand, and life in general…

4. Visits From the #Frameables

Nothing brightens our day like visits from our #frameables and yes these visits make us want to share! #Frameables is our hashtag on Instagram which works much in the same way hashtags work on twitter. Our peeps ARE our studio and we mean it.

Seniors:

Babies: 5. Stuff That Has To Be Shared Because…Well…It’s Just Too Good Not To

This speaks for itself – you just know when you have to snap a shot and post it.

There are plenty of others – a banana tree at a greenhouse, a practical joke, our snarky reflector Reflecto, road trips, selfies (of course)….. What are some of the things you like to Instagram?

Oso Sweet Onions Prove To Be Delicious AND Frameable!

February 16, 2013

by Doug Cohen

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If you follow us at all you probably know by now that we are huge foodies – we love to eat and we love to photograph food, so when the chance came to photograph some sweet and yummy onions we thought it would be very a-peel-ing….. 🙂

Oso Sweet Onions are incredible! We were familiar with them already since they are sold down the hall at Hiller’s Markets, our neighbor. They have about a third higher sugar content than other sweet onion varieties and they don’t release fumes when you cut them so they are virtually tearless! So yummy… They were great models too – very photogenic and easy to work with (haha). Take a look!

Oso Sweet Onions are ready for their close up!

We learn a lot when we photograph products and we enjoy that part of the business. You may recognize these bins or the Oso Sweet Onion logo at the grocery store… grab them and then go back to the Oso Sweet Onions website for recipes and more information, and then the world can be your onion!

Oso Sweet Onions

Meanwhile, the Food Channel we’re not but we took some onions home from the shoot and cooked them up…. What’s your favorite way to enjoy onions?

Frameable Flower Pot Babies For Valentine’s Day!

February 14, 2013

by Doug Cohen

3 Comments

This is actually our second Valentine’s Day post – here’s the first. Meanwhile who doesn’t love flowers on Valentine’s Day right? Well here are some Frameable Flower Pot Babies today from us to you! These fun little ones are all right around 6 months old and as you can see they all really enjoyed themselves! These photos should put a smile on your face for sure… Enjoy!

Flower Pot Babies

When Should You Promote A Facebook Post? Part 2 – Results

February 9, 2013

by Doug Cohen

2 Comments

Last month we wrote a piece about when to promote a facebook post which included a case study, and we mentioned that we would post a follow up with the results.

For starters let’s just say the results were….. successful to a degree but also a little mixed and confusing. We spent $15 and it did seem to reach a lot of people. From that standpoint we feel like we got what we paid for, but there are plenty of discrepancies in the numbers. Sure there is a chance I’m just not understanding them completely but I think I’m a bright guy and if I can’t figure them out then I’m guessing I’m not the only one. The engagement level was not quite what I’d expected either but I think there is a learning opportunity there.

Total Reach

First let’s look purely at the number of people the post reached. Above is the graph that breaks it down into three categories. When we selected the $15 dollar (highest) option it indicated that the reach we were paying for would be in the 2.5k – 3.5k range. When I hover my cursor over each category the organic (people who like the page and either clicked on it themselves or had it appear in their news feed before I started the promotion) shows 372, the paid shows 1637, and the viral (people who saw it as a result of a friend liking, commenting on, or sharing the post) shows 76. By my math that adds up to 2085 – not 1894 and still way short of the estimate I was given. However….

They also provide a promotion summary where I’m told that the paid reach of the post is 3215. Uh…. okay…. so which is it? 1637 or 3215? If 3215 is the number then I’m pleased with the reach. We had about 940 people following our page at the time and we promoted this to our followers and their friends so if $15 bought me 3215 people seeing this post I’m good with that. Side note: I have since found out from a friend who manages a page with a much larger following than ours that it would cost them much more to promote a post – facebook charges considerably more to a page with 100,000 followers than they do to a page with 1000 – like hundreds of dollars instead of $15.

Engagement

So far we’ve looked at the pure mass numbers of people reached. Now let’s dig into how the people who saw the post responded to it. First we’ll look at engaged users:

There were 33 engaged users (number of unique people who clicked on the post), 50 other clicks, so there were people in that group of 33 who came back to the post and clicked on it more than once. There were 10 link clicks – this was a little disappointing since I thought that the thumbnail of the damaged photo of the tent in Vietnam would compel people to check out the link. 14 stories were generated (likes, comments, shares) and only 3 out of thousands hid the link (negative feedback) which is nice – it didn’t turn people off. Overall not huge numbers of engagement. This also doesn’t tell me what kind of collective impact the post had by showing up in thousands of news feeds, but I suspect that there was some impact that I can’t measure immediately. We don’t typically advertise and I’m not an expert in open / click through rates etc. but I do know that when I promoted this our engagement level was over 1.5% and it ended up at .63% When I promoted the post it had met the criteria for Jay Baer’s STIR strategy for when to promote a post which includes waiting 6 hours to promote and only if the post has over 1% engagement. I may raise that to 3% going forward especially if it proves to be true that there will be a natural drop off in the percentage engagement once you send it out to people who may not be familiar with your brand. The last graph of data they give you is the break down of the “stories generated” or people “talking about this”:

11 likes (even though the earlier summary says 14), 2 comments, and 1 share. I think it’s great when someone shares a post because the post then reaches a whole new audience. One share isn’t much, but it’s better than a sharp stick in the eye.

Conclusions

So as I mentioned before I would say the results on this one were mixed. The confusing numbers are a little troubling – even if it’s only $15 dollars I at least want accurate numbers. Facebook is a public company now and these tools are part of the ways they are trying to generate revenue to show Wall Street they can be profitable, but they should clean up the data if this is so critical to their future. As for whether we would promote again? I would say yes but still very selectively. This one while not a complete flop was not a home run but that’s okay – they aren’t all going to be home runs. That’s on us to make sure we learn what content has the most value and appeal for our followers.

Have you paid to sponsor or promote a facebook post? What kind of results have you seen?

The Whole Family Was Here and it Was A Blast!

February 7, 2013

by Doug Cohen

2 Comments

When the impetus for a session is to have both children with their spouses and all five grandchildren together it’s as good a reason as any, and when one of the children has a connection to Ally going back to college days that makes it even more fun for us! What a joy for the grandparents to have their whole family together and captured to decorate their walls!

Multi-generational Family Portrait

We had some laughs on this one to be sure – if you follow us on facebook we shared a “photography tip” that arose from this session. Ally needed to make the youngest kids laugh so she told them that she pooped in her diaper. They were CRACKING UP at this announcement! It was hilarious. There was lots of talk about photography and music and all the adults were jumping around and acting silly to get the kids to smile at one point which was pretty funny…. We hope you enjoy these images as much as we enjoyed producing them!

Family Portrait Siblings and Cousins

Happy Valentine’s Day Starring The Baby For All Seasons!!!

February 6, 2013

by Doug Cohen

1 Comment

We have been photographing this little superstar since he was born and he’s pretty scrumptious. You can actually see he’s yummy below because his mommy was eating him up and left kisses all over him!!! So this photo will serve as our Happy Valentine’s Day wish to you starring one of our favorite little Frameables!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

As a bonus you’ll see why we’ve referred to him as the “baby for all seasons” because he came to the studio in October and transformed into a tasty little chunky pumpkin, and yes this was a real pumpkin! It was chilly in there but he didn’t complain – he totally rocked that shoot and as you can imagine we had a ton of fun with both of these shoots. Each session attracted a crowd of smiling people outside the studio – how could you look at these and not smile? 🙂

Happy Halloween!