Website and social media

Learning goal

You will be able to build a simple online presence that makes it easier for the target client to find you and reach you. You will explain the difference between follower count and winning clients, and position social media as a place to meet, and your own website as a portfolio website where the client decides. On the showcase you will arrange your portfolio, your positioning sentence, your services and a clear call to action. You will apply basic search visibility steps such as page titles, descriptive file names and alt text written for every photo, and if you work with local businesses you will increase your local visibility. You will know that alt text is also necessary for visually impaired users, check whether skin tones in the frames you upload change with the platform's compression or automatic enhancements, and not use filters that change people's skin.

The question

A friend at the club proudly shows the follower count of their social media account: they share a frame every day, and the number grows a little more every week. "You do it like this too," they say. One evening your friend asks this friend how many of these followers have given them work. The answer doesn't come for a while; then they say, "not really any, most are other photographers."

The same week the baker tells your friend how they found them: the café owner sent a link, the baker clicked the link and looked at the photos on the page, then called the phone number. Does social media bring clients? Or does the thing that brings clients stand somewhere else?

Context

In the export lesson you learned to size a photo for the internet by its long edge, choose the sRGB profile and remove location data (Lesson 17.9). In the niche lesson, too, you wrote who you are and what you offer to whom in a one-sentence positioning (Lesson 28.2). In the previous lesson you built a fifteen-frame portfolio for the baker with all its permissions in place (Lesson 28.3).

This lesson carries that portfolio to a place where people can find it. Online presence is today often a photographer's first impression; but follower count, likes and shares aren't the work itself. This lesson separates the different jobs of social media and your own site, explains the basic steps of search visibility, and shows that many of these steps also serve accessibility.

Simple explanation

Why aren't followers and clients the same thing?

A follower is anyone who wants to see an account's posts; a large share of them can be other photographers, friends or people who simply love photography. A client, on the other hand, is someone who needs a job done and will pay for it. While the follower count grows, the client count may not change at all. The situation of your friend's acquaintance at the club is a common experience many photographers describe: striking frames attract the most interest from other photographers, but a baker or a café owner usually comes by another route.

This doesn't mean social media is useless. Social media is a place to meet: a café owner can see the photographer's name in one of their customers' posts; a business can warm to a photographer through a short video showing the process behind a shoot. What matters is that posts are chosen through the target client's eyes and that each post, at its end, directs that person to the next step, that is, to the showcase or to contact. An account growing with frames the target client won't be interested in is like a shop full of the wrong people. That is why what should be measured on social media isn't likes, but how many people moved to the showcase, how many wrote, and how many of them gave work. A simple table, putting these three numbers side by side every month, shows which posts work.

What should a portfolio website carry?

A portfolio website is the photographer's own site, in their name or their business's, that presents their portfolio, services and contact information together and where the client decides. The rules, look and access of social media platforms aren't in the photographer's control; their own site is. The link the baker clicked should have gone to a page like this, not to a social media profile. In the about section, a simple portrait showing the photographer's own face and a few sentences telling whom they work with and where give trust, especially to a client who will invite someone into their home or workplace.

On a portfolio website a few things are clearly visible: the positioning sentence at the top of the page, the client portfolio below it, then a short services section telling what work you do, a few sentences and a photo telling who you are, and a call to action repeated on every page. A call to action is a short sentence that clearly tells the visitor the next step, such as "Let's plan a shoot for your venue: write to us," and the contact route beside it. A site that doesn't read comfortably on a phone, hides its contact information or opens slowly can lose the client despite strong frames; that is why photos are exported at the right size and compression for the internet.

How do people find you?

Search visibility is the whole of the adjustments made so that a site can be found in the results when someone types something relevant into a search engine; it is often called search engine optimization (SEO). The basic steps aren't complicated: writing clearly in each page's title what is offered and in which city or region you work, adding short descriptions to pages, uploading photo files with names that describe their content instead of meaningless numbers, and writing alt text for every photo.

Alt text is the text that describes in a short sentence what a photo shows, and that is read when the photo can't be displayed or when a visually impaired person using a screen reader visits the page. Search engines also understand the photo's content from this text. Good alt text is concrete enough, like "hot loaves lined up on a bakery counter in morning light," for someone who can't see to picture the frame in their mind. When people are described, only what is needed to understand the frame is said; no guesses are made about a person's identity. Alt text isn't a keyword list either; stringing the same words one after another tells a visitor who can't see nothing.

Local visibility is a photographer working in their nearby area being findable when people and businesses in their region search or look at map apps. For someone serving neighborhood businesses, free local business listings, a service area written on the site and reviews from satisfied clients often bring more work than a general follower count. Reviews should come from real clients, in their own words; reviews that were dictated or made up damage both trust and, in many places, legal limits. The site is also checked now and then, especially by opening it on a phone: whether the links work, whether the contact information is current and whether new portfolio frames have been added.

Visual evidence

Your friend builds a simple portfolio website. At the very top the positioning sentence, below it the fifteen-frame portfolio, then a three-line list of services and, at the bottom of every page, a phone number with the sentence "Let's plan a morning shoot for your venue." They upload the photo files with names describing their content and write alt text for each.

They also upload the portfolio to a social media account and open it on their phone to look. The dark-skinned master's floury hands and laughing face at the close of the portfolio look lighter and pinker because of the platform's automatic enhancement. They turn off the automatic enhancement, export the frame again as sRGB and upload it; the master's skin returns to the same warmth as the frame on the site.

On their account they no longer share a frame every day. A few times a week they share a short video showing behind a shoot or a business's before and after photos; under every post is the link to the portfolio website. A month later two new businesses call the number on the site.

Common mistakes

Summary

Follower count and winning clients aren't the same thing: social media is a place to meet and every post should direct the target client to the next step, while the client usually decides on the photographer's own portfolio website, with the positioning sentence, portfolio, services and a clear call to action. Page titles, descriptive file names, alt text written for every photo that also serves visually impaired visitors, and local visibility make being found easier; in uploaded frames it is checked that skin tones don't change with the platform's compression or automatic enhancements, and filters that change skin aren't used.

Mini assignment

In this assignment you will draft your own portfolio website and make a social media plan.

1. Sketch a one-page showcase draft: positioning sentence, portfolio, services, about section and a call to action; write the call to action in a single sentence.
2. Write a title and a short description for the site's home page; include what you offer and the region you work in.
3. For five frames in your portfolio, write a descriptive file name each and concrete alt text each that someone who can't see could picture the frame from.
4. Upload a frame with people of different skin tones to a platform, open it on a phone and compare it with the original file; if the skin changed, find the reason and fix it. Write a four-week posting plan according to your target client.

Check yourself

• Can you explain the different jobs of social media and your portfolio website?
• Is your alt text concrete enough for someone who can't see?
• Did you confirm that skin tones in the uploaded frames look as they do in the original file?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. What is one reason follower count isn't the same as client count?

• A) Most followers can be other photographers or people who don't need a job done
• B) Followers never become clients
• C) Social media hides photos
• D) Clients don't use the internet

2. What is the basic difference between a portfolio website and social media?

• A) It brings more followers
• B) Its look and content are in the photographer's control
• C) Photos can't be uploaded
• D) It shows only video

3. Whom does alt text serve?

• A) Only the photographer
• B) Only platform administrators
• C) Visually impaired visitors using screen readers, and search engines
• D) Only printers

4. If a dark-skinned face looks lighter and pinker in an uploaded frame, what is done?

• A) Leaving the frame as it is
• B) Converting the frame to black and white
• C) Adding a filter to lighten the skin further
• D) Turning off the automatic enhancement, exporting again with sRGB and checking on a phone

Answers

1. A — Striking frames also attract other photographers; a follower doesn't have to be someone who needs a job done.
2. B — Your own site presents the portfolio and contact as the photographer wants, without depending on platforms' rules.
3. C — Alt text describes the frame for someone who can't see the image and tells search engines its content.
4. D — The platform's automatic enhancement can change skin; turning it off and uploading again with the right profile keeps the original tone.

Summary card

• Count not followers, but clients who get in touch.
• Social media introduces, the portfolio website makes the decision.
• Showcase: positioning, portfolio, services, call to action.
• Title, file name, alt text, local listing.
• Check skin tones after uploading; don't use filters that change skin.

Bridge to the next lesson

The two new businesses call and both start with the same question: "How much?" At the café your friend had named a figure, but they themselves don't know how they arrived at it; it was a bit of guesswork and a bit of shyness. If they named the same figure for the baker, they would be putting the same price on a shoot that will take twice as long and on the photos being used in the bakery's window, on its website and in printed brochures. How do you calculate the price of a shoot? The next lesson takes up pricing that thinks about cost, time, value and usage rights together.