When I decided to become a full-time photographer, I knew that an important part of my marketing strategy should be Social Media. In particular Instagram. So I put all my efforts into building a name for myself as a brand, and a portfolio that would represent who I was as a photographer. But, like most people, I got obsessed with followers, comments and likes, and not having a clear goal for my social media efforts and an understanding of what these terms meant made me constantly worry that I was doing something wrong.
In hindsight, my first mistake was not knowing my brand enough. Which is strange, because I created this brand myself, and as a freelance photographer it is an extension of me. But not knowing what my brand stood for and what type of branding I was trying to create made me follow social media strategies that were not suitable for me. JC Candanedo is not Nike, is not Tesco nor Walmart, is not even similar to other photographer's brands like Tim Walker or Mert and Marcus. So why was I trying to copy what those other brands were doing on social media if I wasn't like them in the first place?
My second mistake was not knowing what I wanted to get from my marketing strategy. In my obsession with metrics, I confused engagement (likes and comments), with post views (impressions and reach), with conversion and awareness. Not understanding what these terms meant and how they could work for me made me apply trial and error tactics that were not suited for JC Candanedo. Probably the biggest confusion that I had was not really knowing if I was creating posts for conversion (and exactly what that conversion was) or for brand awareness.
But in starting my blog and writing about me, about my brand, about the industry, about the issues that I care for and about how important the sense of creative community is for me, I have come to realize that what my marketing strategy has been about all along is brand awareness. And that is the conversion that I should have been measuring. This fact has never been clearer to me than during this last Fashion Week.
I moved to London in 2013, but it wasn't until mid-2014 when I decided to go full-time with my photography. In just 3 years I went from not having a portfolio nor even knowing a single person in the industry to where I am at right now. It may sound like a slow process to some, but for me, it has been an exhilarating journey. And this past weekend, while shooting the runways and the backstage in Fashion Scout during London Fashion Week, I had a moment of self-reflection.
Some of the people in the event (designers, models, guests, organizers) knew me from previous seasons; while others who didn't know me at least had heard of me. And this is what I have been working so hard for over the last few years. To make myself a name in the creative community in London.
So the lesson here is that I shouldn't have been worrying so much about getting more likes or accumulating more followers; or so concerned with the number of impressions versus the size of my reach. None of that matters. What I should have been focusing on, and what I was actually doing without realizing it, was in presenting an authentic image of myself and of my brand so that my audience felt organically attracted to me. Which in turn creates an engagement that translates into a conversion trackable only by the number of meaningful connections with actual people that I make.
Photo by Wayne Noir.
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