A few weeks ago Jon looked up from his mac and said “you’re a little marketing facebook wizard”.  My immediate response, “Does that mean I can go to Hogwarts?”

Recently I’ve been getting tons of comments about my marketing techniques, and some requests for info.  My first reaction is yah right 90% of the time I have no idea what I’m doing.  But since Jon thinks I’m a wizard, I guess I’ll give this a go.  I can’t guarentee that any of these techniques will work for you, I just know what works for me.   I’m a list maker so that’s what you’re gettin’.  Here goes.

1. Branding- You gotta have a brand.  When I say brand I mean your look, your logo, even you personal image is important.  In my bus. I am my product for the most part.  So everything is important, how I dress, what I say, it’s all part of the package.  That’s not to say any look goes, I’m just saying if I showed up to a shoot wearing hiking boots, and a khaki shirt with tons of pockets, I’m giving people a different impression than perhaps the one I want.  So brand carefully. My brand in the simplist form is the AC you see on everything.  Now that I’ve taken on the fine art in my bus.  the AC is what will tie it all together.

2. Social Media- Most of you know how I market in this department.  I think there’s a fine line between just enough and way too much.  I want to be present on your facebook page, but I don’t want to be in your face.  Haha  The last thing you want people to do is hide you.  eek.  It’s also important to blog regularly.  2 reasons, it keeps your clients up on your most recent work, and it helps your ratings in the google dept.  So blog and blog often.  You can’t blog too much.  Go for it.  Just be sure to tag each and every blog you write.  You can see what words are searched most often if you google keywords. See  http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS270&q=keywords&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

3. Google- Gotta let google see you and make it easy for them to read you.  Wordpress is great for now, but that could change.  I’ve heard that blogger is no good for google to read, but google ownes them so who knows.  By changing over to wordpress you’ll lose blogger followers, but you might possibly get higher on the google pages.  It’s a give and a take I tell yah, and sometimes I just throw my hands up.  My whole page is wordpress with some jquery.

4. Website- Speaking of wordpress, it’s great, but I had a flash site before, and was at the top of most pages for Kansas City newborns, maternity, and babies!  Then I switched to wordpress and lost that ranking.  No idea why.  Google is a mystery, and I think they like it that way.  You can try to web optomize by tagging, updating your page regularly, and being old, the site I mean.  Even still it’s a bit of a mystery.  If you really want to get to the top, hire someone, but be careful, some companies are dirty and they’ll get you kicked off of google.  Give Justin over at Cowtown a buzz.  He’ll take care of you. http://cowtownmarketing.com/ They can build your website too.

5. Advertising- Ugh!  So hard to know what works.  I’ve tried a variety of things, but what I’ve found that works best is google ads, facebook ads, and word of mouth.  You can sign up for both google and facebook ads and only pay for clicks on your ads.  That’s awesome.  But it can get expensive too.  And it’s really hard to track clicks that turn into customers.

6.  Peeps- The last bit of advice I give you is to be yourself and love your people.  Show them your true colors.  Hold nothing back, share your up times and your down times.  Celebrate and cry with your fans.  They’ll love you more for it.  Probably the hardest thing I’ve had to learn to do.  I’m a private person (pause for sarcastic laughter) and sharing my  failures is hard to swallow, but it’s getting easier.  Be you, be loving, and reward your peeps for sharing you.

I hope these tidbits help.  If you have your own tips I’d love to hear them just comment below.  If you have a question you can comment that too.

Much love my friends!