No I’m not talking shutter speed, aperture and ISO. I’m talking about getting your work out there. Today it seems everyone has a DSLR camera, which is great! It’s a great hobby and I love that there is such a great community around it. With so many people embracing this hobby it feel almost impossible to get your work noticed.

Obviously quality is a major factor. Your work has to be of a good standard if you want to be noticed. I’m not saying by any means don’t share your work until the quality is great. Photography is an amazing journey and we are all on that journey and improving with each hour we put in. What I’m saying is that if you are at the frustrating point of wanting recognition and exposure then at this point your work needs to be of a good standard. It may not fit the rules, it may be different but it still has to be good.

OK so your work is good, you get likes on pages you share on Facebook but you want more! You hunger for greater recognition, you want the world to see your work. This is where it starts to get really difficult.

I know, I’ll start an Instagram account and the followers will flood in! If only it was that easy. Each social media you choose to share on is a challenge in itself. Each has its own quirks making it very difficult to reach those viewers who you desperately want to see your work.

I have made a video on this subject

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eirbMBQyDeg

So what do we do? How do we get the exposure we want?

Maybe I should end this blog here and come back to it when I know, when I have reached that audience. Hell, even writing this here vlog is an arrow fired into an open battlefield hoping to reach someone.

No, let’s carry on. What I can do, what I can offer, is a few tips I have picked up along the way that have helped me get my work seen.

Facebook

Everyone has a photography page, some are successful. For me this has not been the case. It’s very slow growth and I don’t put much time into it. Maybe I should put more in but time vs return for me does not seem valid.

I find the best return comes from sharing in Facebook groups. Obviously photography groups! One tip I can give is that local groups tend to give a better response than generic. I may be biased here but one group I find is great for the community side of photography is Landscape Photography on YouTube UK. I say biased because it’s the groups I created. That said it is the one place you can ask a photography related question or just engage in photography related chat and get a warm honest response. It truly does feel like a great community and I’ve met many people I now consider friends from here.

Instagram

Instagram is very hip, very fast and very now. Images come and go in a fleeting second. You see lots of accounts with thousands of followers and think it must be an easy place to share your work.

Wrong…

For most it is not a quick way to get a following. When I started I figured the easiest way would be to follow lots of people and they would follow me back. The end result was I just followed lots of people with a smaller percentage of a follow back ratio. These followers didn’t tend to engage in my work either. I have reverted that now and got rid of all the followers and people I follow who have no interaction with me. This now leaves a much more honest and focused account. I did this using Instagram Cleaner which if you pay a small amount allows you to remove inactive and ghost accounts. A little bit of advice is to pay for the cloud version as otherwise you’ll need to have the app open on your phone whilst clearing the selected amount of people down, which takes time.

For me what works is finding pages that share your work who have large followings and tag them in your images. I use local tags relevant to my area which generate shares from local pages. Another big tip is to take the time to engage with other people’s work. We get so focused on sharing our own stuff we forget to appreciate the work of others we see and love. How can we expect others to view our work if we don’t take the time to view theirs?

Twitter

I’m finding twitter very difficult to get my head around. Getting exposure here is something I cannot really offer tips on. Pease feel free to comment and help me here. I use hastags and tag people but get very little exposure here.

Tumblr

Not a clue…. I’m finding this one worse than twitter. Several shares and not a single like! How is this even possible? Mystery

Magazine Publications

Sometimes it’s easy to forget you can share your work outside of the virtual world. Nearly all magazines have a way to submit images, whether it’s for articles, front covers or competitions. I have featured in 2 magazines now and I’m not the greatest photographer! If I can do it then you can too. My most recent feature was in Outdoor photography Magazine in which I was paid £50 for 1 image to be used as a viewpoint. I did have to write an essay on the location to go with it as it was for a viewpoint feature but it was still great to be in a magazine and get paid. Some magazines will pay you if you are featured and some don’t. It’s up to you if you feel you need to be paid to get exposure. For me not having to pay in todays world is a bonus.

That leads me onto my next and final subject…

Paying for exposure

Boost this post to reach more people! It’s very tempting, a few pounds to reach more people and get a larger following. Think of the hours of sharing and posting you will save with a few pound. The truth is that click through rate on adverts is so low that unless you are pumping lots of money into advertising it is not worth the money. If a single click could lead to a sale that could cover some of the advertising costs then yes, you can see why companies advertise. For us hobbyists it’s not worth it. Not unless you are selling a product that you think could lead a return with advertising costs. Workshops and wedding bookings are something that springs to mind here.

I have missed out YouTube. The reason I have missed YouTube out is I feel that needs a blog in itself. I guess all I can say in this blog is that you have to put a lot of hours into YouTube, far more than any other social media. If you are in it for exposure alone then I would say it is not worth the man time for exposure return.

It takes me around 6-8 hours to edit each video. That video may only get 300 views and that’s with 650 subs. If you want to get into YouTube do it because you want to create content. The content is an art form in itself. If you are doing it just to share your images then there are far more effective ways to share that image.

If you would like to view my YouTube work and support the hours put in please check me out here on YouTube

I hope this has been helpful. I’m sure I have missed many areas out as this is a very large topic. One I’m sure I will return to in the future.

Where do you share that you get a great return of exposure from?