Make an Event of Your Event Coverage

I left a funny note for my daughter on her keys.  She quickly snapped a picture of the note and shared it with her friends.  I’m not sure what she said about me or the note, but the fact that she took a picture and shared it struck me. 

Watch teenagers at any gathering.  They are snapping photos and posting instantly, sharing the event with those who are there and those who are not.

Have you seen Instagram used on a smartphone?  Are you participating in Pinterest?  Do you have a Facebook page?  Photo sharing is a primary part of the mission statements of many of the best social sites.

Now observe a business event, chamber outing or nonprofit function.  You will see photographers, but the sharing seems to be missing. Or, if it is shared it is days or weeks (or in the case of newsletter, months) later.  The day of the newsletter with a couple of the photos of the most popular people in the shot is dead.  It’s time to make an event of the event coverage.  People can’t virtually attend unless there is a real story to be told through photography and immediacy.

So the next time you hold an event, don’t assign an event photographer. Assign an event social media photographer/poster and create an online event of the event that includes more photos faster.

Read Full Post »

Photograph Employees on Monday

You may have heard of the ‘magic hour’ in photography and video.  It falls an hour before sunset or an hour after sunrise.  The light is magical at those times and the shadows add depth and contrast to photographs and video. 

There also may be a magic hour to shooting employee photographs and video.  According to Psychology Today, “Monday is the best-looking your colleagues will get.”  In a British study, the average woman spends 76 minutes on Monday primping, but only 19 minutes on Friday (including bathing, makeup, outfit and hair).  Men spend 28 minutes on Monday and 11 minutes on Friday.

Some experts believe that this effect is caused by our need to hype ourselves up for the work week, so we spend more time getting ready at the beginning of the week.

So, the next time you want to take a photograph of your CEO or colleague, book the shoot for Monday.  Avoid Fridays.

Read Full Post »

Ratings and Television

I “retired” from local television in 1996.  At that time, the three local network affiliates’ 6:00 pm newscasts had a combined audience of nearly 200,000 adults 18+.  Today, according to Nielsen, that audience has dropped about 25% over 10 years.  Not all programs or newscasts have dropped to that degree.  If you buy a commercial on all three local TV stations at the same time today, you would reach about 150,000 adults. 

How does that stack up?  Well, people get pretty excited about having a message at an Iowa football game.  Thousands of dollars are spent every weekend trying to touch fans at a game.  Only about 70,000 people (of all ages) attend a game, and the number is really lower if you take out all the ‘drinking impaired’ people. 

With one commercial on three TV stations you would hit twice as many people as at one football game — and I believe with more impact.

Traditional media still has a lot of kinetic power and branding ability:  When Apple wants to sell a new Nano it uses television and a very catchy ad.    Try creating a brand icon only using your Web site, Facebook page or Twitter.   Internet and social media outlets are building, but the real power today is not in the hype, it’s in the facts.  Yes, busy yourself with social media, but don’t stop marketing with what works.  Traditional media has not signed off.

Read Full Post »

The $50 No

Baseball is one of the most precisely counted games.  There are stats for every situation.  Horse racing is about the same.  Last weekend I attended both venues and was reminded about a valuable sales technique. 

I was talking with my brothers-in-law at the Cubs game about sales and selling — the game was against the Mets and not very exciting.  We talked about how baseball is all stats.  We ended the weekend at Arlington Park watching the horses run.  Again, the betting book was full of statistics on each horse.   We talked about keeping the same stats on our performance.  Not the typical human relations stuff, but strickly on performance in specific situations.  

One of my brothers-in-law, who is a great salesperson, said that when he gets a sales ‘no,’ it’s worth $50.  He knows that, because he is one-tenth of the way to a ‘yes.’  His closing ratio is 10% and the 10th is a $500 payoff so each ‘no’ (and one yes) is worth $50.  (Numbers have been changed in the story to protect the innocent and my note-taking.) 

Every baseball player who stepped up to bat in Wrigley had his batting averaged displayed for all to see.  Could you operate that way?  We are all quick to ask for ROI for one advertising medium over another, but what about our direct sales efforts?  

In the book, The Numbers Game: Baseball’s Lifelong Fascination with Statistics, it states you can look up that “Nolan Ryan had a 1.78 groundball-to-flyball ratio in 1974.”  Do you even know your best days for sales?  Are Mondays better for calls than Tuesdays?  Do long proposals have a better closing average than short proposals?  How do you perform in the rain, at night or before a holiday?  It would be hard to count (and a bit mind-numbing) but imagine knowing the best day, best time and best people to have on your sales lineup for the big sales game.   And, imagine the confidence-building power of knowing that every ”no” has a real value.

Read Full Post »

The New Perspective

I’m not in many of our family vacation shots.  Not because I’m not there, but because I’m usually the one behind the camera. 

It is a new day for photography, not because of digital photographs, but because of the new perspective.  The photographer has come from behind the camera to join the fun. 

Teenagers have changed the way photography looks and feels: kids get better tight shots of faces; with Photobucket and other Web sites they are experimenting with black and white, distortion, colorization and other photo effects; and they are quick to post their shots on some social networking platform.  However look at typical newsletters and other publications and you’ll see the same old dull, lifeless shots. 

Kids seem to instinctively know good photography as well:  I’ve yet to hear my 13-year-old daughter say, “here, get up next to that wall and smile.”  That gives a harsh shadow and a staged look.  Instead she would grab the people and squeeze her head next to them giving a warm, impromptu feel and look. 

This approach provides good lessons for photography and general publications: 

• Get close to your subject
• Let your personality show in the photo and publication
• Don’t push people up against a wall, show them in action
• Get more personal
• Show a new angle on the same old shots  and stories

Kids are changing photography, and the way we see all our publications.

Read Full Post »