Blog planning, design and launch for independent snowsports photographer
We helped Camilla of Whiteroom Pictures add a new dimension to her marketing with a plan for creating and coordinating exposure on social media networks and a personal blog.
Camilla Stoddart is a freelance photographer who travels the world covering events and locations for ski publications, travel books and outdoor adventure magazines.
She already had an attractive portfolio site and a busy Facebook group, but wanted to take her self-promotion a step further with a place for writing about her work and experiences. Camilla was keen to experiment with ways of developing her ‘personal brand’ and getting her message out to as wide an audience as possible.
To achieve that she needed a manageable and affordable way of building brand awareness and brand equity (sometimes called brand esteem). That, put simply, meant getting her more exposure and building on the sense of value and desirability for she does professionally.
Telling the story behind the lens
After exploring her objectives we helped her plan and launch a personal blog, complimenting her portfolio site, where she could publish a journal of her professional life and tell the stories behind the stunning photos she produces. It was important that the blog carried the visual theme of her portfolio site, but allowed for a balance between photographic and text-based content.
Working as a freelancer Camilla’s time is precious, so when it came to publishing news and updates it was important for her to have an efficient mechanism for ‘write once, use in many places’.
Distributing content and managing many profiles
We recommended WordPress as her publishing platform and set to work customising a theme to match the visual style of her portfolio site. Once it was installed and styled the job involved researching plug-ins to allow her to integrate her content with her profiles on Facebook and Flickr.
To get Camilla started on the fundamentals of blogging we helped her create a content strategy for regular and insightful posting.
Overall, our approach involved the following methods:
- Researching the gaps in her marketing mix.
- Assessing how much time she has available for online promotion and communication.
- Selecting, installing and customising a blogging platform (WordPress was the application of choice).
- Helping her to create and/or integrate profiles on popular social media networks.
- Formulating a strategy for writing and publishing content on a regular basis.
- Training her to use and maintain a WordPress driven site.
As with many of our projects, we will revisit Camilla's blog project in due course to ensure everything is running smoothly and to make suggestions for improvement.
“I wasn't sure how many people would be interested in my blog and how I would find the time to keep it current, but after getting it set up in a well designed, attractive and easy to use way, I have found this to be an invaluable marketing tool for my photography business. My blog really compliments my work and allows me to communicate with my clients, keeping them up to date on what I'm doing and what goes into my trips. Tactic Group were very efficient and professional to work with and I am delighted with the results.”
- Camilla Stoddart Whiteroom Pictures.