Billy Newman Photo Podcast | 121 Driving Photo Service Roads

Driving Photo Service Roads

Produced by Billy Newman and Marina Hansen

Link Driving Photo Service Roads

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121

Hey, what’s going on? Thanks a lot for listening to this episode of The Billy Newman photo podcast. My name is Billy Newman, I’m a photographer. I’m based in the Northwest. And I try and shoot a lot of a lot of landscape work. If you’re familiar with this podcast, maybe you’re familiar with some of those photographs, as it turns out, I think, according to my, my statistics, there’s about 17 people that seem to download this file on the regular. So it probably means you subscribe to the RSS that could be fake pings or tags or fake downloads, or just my devices. My either iPad downloading the file a second time, maybe that’s all it is. But But yeah, wow, 17 people, you know, actually, whoever it is that’s listening to this on pocket casts? How many? Thanks a lot for checking out my podcast. I know, it’s not me. So I don’t know, I see like a couple of Android things that come through and was it’s like 9%, downloads on pocket cast, there’s like 18 to 20% on iTunes. And then there seems like it’s like a surprising amount, like 50%. There’s like, there’s a bunch of little ones like, you know, little app, other podcast apps and stuff. But the big one is just other. I don’t know what that one is, maybe that’s link clicks or web plays or, or some other kind of thing, or just spam in general, just some kind of generic ping on to the RSS feed, that doesn’t actually end up going anywhere.

I don’t know. But that’s what

I noticed. Oh, thanks to whoever it is that has an Android phone that wanted to listen to this building the photo podcast. Today I’m on a drive. I’m heading up into the mountains right now I’m going to be checking the forest for some chanterelle mushrooms. I’m trying to see if it’s like November’s six, I’m trying to figure out if it has frozen out here up in the hillside. And that’s that’s kind of one of the well, that’s just the end of the season, right. Like if you’re if you’re in the gardening stuff at all, like I think you guys probably figure that Frost is the sort of the thing that you look for in the almanac. And when it’s coming in your region or your your district of agricultural growth. There’s some whole scheme of it that they’ve been thinking of for hundreds of years. So how to farm and when stuff happens, and it turns out to be pretty important. But as the frost goes per your elevation, I think that that’s when the freeze comes to settle. And that’s when you lose a lot of the the growth of the crop that you’re growing. So the same kind of works for these chanterelle mushrooms up here, I think once it starts to freeze, they get really slimy in their growth, and then they stop stop growing. So you kind of want that like wet, warm, I guess warm by plant to standards, but it seems kind of cold but above freezing wet and moist, and kind of cycling warm and wet and moist for a while. But yeah, I think that’s why you get that that end of October, or you know, probably most of the month of October is the is the better time to do some chantrell picking stuff way to try at the beginning of September. So way to summer time, like not wet enough for that time of year, at least up here for some of the stuff that’s not directly on that coastal line, I think you get better, better seasonality on the coast, as it were. But I’m driving up here, I got a couple things to talk about today as it goes for photo stuff, photo marketing, business marketing stuff, just the regular stuff that I’ve been trying to work out. The main one, the thing that I’ve been spending a bit of time on was LinkedIn networking, do you guys use LinkedIn? I use LinkedIn a bit. But I really don’t use LinkedIn, I think I just kind of manage having a LinkedIn account. But I’m not really sure I’m getting any any true value out of that, as it stands right now. So I don’t know if what I’m doing is really going to give me a ton of value. But I’m trying to expand my network of connections, my professional connections online. And you know, in the past, when I’ve done this, I’ve actually gotten jobs just from cold connecting to different people in sort of an industry field that might have some work for me like I did that with real estate agents. I suppose if you’re an outward photographer, and you’re listening to this, and you want to try and want to try and do a real estate gig, take photos of house property for some underperforming real estate agent in your local area, some nifty 55 year old who can’t use email. But I guess can use LinkedIn. Well, you know, this is what I ended up with is someone who can use like LinkedIn but cannot use email. So I did like a ton of real estate agents or real estate related job titles, and I just kind of connected with them and did that for a few hours a day for a couple days. Right. And I got a I got a ping bat. You know, someone contacted me and said, Hey, I saw some of your work I want to do I have this thing I need you to shoot this event, it would pay 200 bucks and I needed 200 bucks, right that is probably lower than the day rates of other photographers but I’m really just trying to put some pieces together. You know what I mean? And right now like cash is cast business in relationship to photographs. His business for photographs. So that’s kind of what I’m what I’m trying to what I was trying to jump on. And of course, I’m still trying to do but it’s kind of a weird thing jumping into LinkedIn, trying to get work from it, or trying to get participation of other people, it’s definitely a situation where folks are trying to get more value than what they’re really trying to give. And I think that’s always kind of the nature of networking. And it’s really just the ugly part of it, where it seems to sort of fall apart is that is that the the individuals sort of always want, the more of it. And I don’t really know how to change that, as it goes for oil, you know, at least my experience of it from what I’m trying to contact with these people. I think it’s really just sort of a quick way of weeding some people out in a sense, or, you know, weeding people that aren’t really as sophisticated as astute and their, their their relationship building or networking skill or something like that. But I get a lot of these sort of spammy, automated emails that come back at me that just sort of have some generic unnamed opportunity that I could participate in. That isn’t work, but it’s something I can own. And you’re like, what is what is it she’s talking to me about this? Is this some guy that’s my age that sad? no jobs?

Huh?

I don’t know about this. So there’s a few of those things that seem to pop up every once in a while with, with the connections that I’m making, but what I’ve been doing is I jumped on, I got the app, the LinkedIn, iPhone app, and I went into the network section. And I type in professionals like other photographers, or their producers or directors are agencies that things like that, that are up and down the West Coast or just just period in the United States. I’m trying to connect with those more and really, right now I’m just going through and I’m I’m like adding people like gangbusters, right, I’m just trying to add 1000 people per sitting sort of thing, and then figure 10% of those might might connect back in in a timely fashion more that would probably come over the next day or two. But But if you’re if you’re new to LinkedIn, I guess there’s a few kind of things to do at the beginning that are a bit of a start. I think that part of it’s like trying to get up to 500 connections, I think once you have more than a few 100 connections, you have a few more abilities, like I’ve seen this on a few social networks that if you haven’t really fresh account, or it’s not really developed, they kind of want you to put in some effort put in some work and some time before you just go spam 1000 connections Oh, and when is that? You have to have a connection to the person first, right? So what I’ve done for a while, like maybe a year ago or so is I really tried to build up my network to about 5000. I think I was at like the 4500 area for a long time and is fine. Or I think maybe about 10% of that that total number actually sees a post that I would that I produce. So it works pretty well. But what I’m trying to do now is trying to expand that stretch it out build, it probably goes to the like 10,000 or so you know, if it’s just as easy, I think I’m, I’m close to 7000. So that’s up almost 1000 connections just in the last day. And so this makes it much much easier to try and produce that stuff in sort of a quick amount of time. But I think that part of building like I was talking about last week building distribution, building audience and network of people that get to see and then sort of also trying to figure out what is the the the value of that? Is there an arbitrage? Which is a word I didn’t really understand for a long time. Is there a bill? Is there a trade of value in the thing that I’m actually working on? Sometimes Sometimes it seems like there’s sometimes it seems like it builds over a pretty long, slow amount of time. But yeah, the podcasting stuff, the photos, stuff, the business stuff, the advertising stuff, the networking, it’s kind of coming together. It’s been fun. And I’ve been feeling pretty motivated with the last last couple of weeks. You know, it’s been cool. On the content side, I was talking about the Facebook ads and that stuff last week, I’m trying to figure out a better longer lasting strategy for that stuff to like, megawatt I spent 40 bucks last week on just a couple posts. And I was noticing that kind of comes back to this idea. I remember from evolution, right, there’s a theory of evolution, but which sort of says that there’s a uniformitarianism in the universe where things progressed slowly over a long period of time and those changes are implemented generationally. small incremental changes over a long period of generations. A challenge to that idea. Follow me on this and it goes back to photography and media in a minute. And advertising on Facebook. A challenge to the idea of that notion of uniformitarianism in evolution was punctuated punctuated equilibrium where things are nearly equal almost the whole time and then There’s some punctuated event that makes things unequal all the sudden. And that’s the period. That’s the time of change, where things are at a status of equilibrium. And then at a punctuated moment in time, lots of things change all at one time, I think it’s like once explained it, but the first scene and an x men, like the one from 1999, when the some accelerated change in the genome, it’s all science fiction at that point. But the punctuated equilibrium ideas, it comes back into advertising and networking stuff, kind of noticing that that some pieces of content Some are, and this is what Facebook’s for some pieces of content work better, and scale better to an audience than other pieces, things are liked more than other things. So I’m trying to go through and pick a few of the photographs that would respond best as an advertisement, or as an advertiser to boost a piece of content to a larger audience. And go through and kind of be a little specific about like, is it? Is it the portfolio images I have? Do people seem to like this kind of star photo a lot more, or this kind of photo

with a person in it a lot more? I don’t know, just kind of interesting stuff. Seems like there’s a few little pieces that people hook on to, and then it kind of grab on to as far as content goes. So sort of interesting when you’re just kind of thinking about that figure and trying to figure out what works a little better. Oh, can you believe it? They’ve locked the gate that I normally go to over there. So that means I’m gonna have to get out. Oh, what a what a podcast. This is podcast history, ladies and gentlemen. Today’s worldwide broadcast is going to be abruptly shut. Oh, yeah, there’s a chain. So yeah, it’s definitely locked. Alright, see ya,

hi, pass.

wine, whatever. Okay, so well, now I’m backing up in my truck.

I’m not looking at the road

turned around. So the whole plan on this was to go up this road, and then go down to this like little open basin area, and then you take a right, and then you go up another road that’s a little tighter. And then you kind of pull over to this area where you find some ferns and furs and machines and stuff. So that’s where I was gone. But there’s this forest service gate, I guess that, you know, for the public safety ends up getting shot in the winter time. So I’m doing a little turn around. And I gotta go around. So I guess it’s like back then to Ferguson. Is that interesting? Well, it’s good that I found this out. I guess that’s the kind of reconnaissance that this trip is going to be for. So I’ll probably arrive showfield a little later. Michelle, what are we talking about networking, advertising, punctuated equilibrium. I think that’s punctuated equilibrium idea in evolution stuff, things don’t happen at the same time. Some things work better to make changes, and others are trying to figure that same idea into advertising some of my content on Facebook. So if I’m taking my Facebook page, and I’m trying to put that piece of content, and boost it for let’s say, like 15 bucks, it seems like about $5 per 1000 people to see it. So 15 bucks. Seems to get you about 1500 people to see, I think I paid a little over 20 maybe 25. And I got nearly 3000 people 3000 impressions of that piece of content. And it really responded well in that relevancy to to its market. So so I’m going to try and figure out a way to put more behind that. I think that was like the one of the best, or the most possible ways to build a business or to build an audience of people that are going to participate in your business in the future is really going to be through Facebook ads, at least as it stands right now. And with the current environment and the Internet of advertising and the way marketing stuff works. I wouldn’t buy Google AdWords, let’s say to to market my business. I definitely put it in to Facebook, and Instagram, really. But those those are the places that seem to work the best, but it really seems to be more targeted on Facebook. I was surprised. This is another thing that surprised me when I was looking at the metrics of the Facebook advertising sizer, and it seems like 95% deep like 90s was on mobile. I didn’t really understand that all of the Facebook feed was viewed on mobile all the impressions that I seem to get for the photographs that I have are on mobile devices, I would have thought that still a decent amount of the Facebook share would have been on the desktop and I think it’s really only like me, I think I think my my stuff is, you know, like, my view of my page is the only stuff that still comes up on PC, probably I don’t know, my parents or something. It’s, yeah, it doesn’t seem like there’s really much traction there on the desktop at all. And I remember a few years ago, that was sort of the big complaint, or the big worry with Facebook and its algorithm when they’re trying to make up all those changes, kind of in the 2011 1213 1415 era, where we’re Facebook seemed like it was on a bit of a dip. And then now it really seems like it’s kind of kind of in control, at least a shaky is the social media stuff can go I mean, what is Twitter on sturdy ground? Is LinkedIn really on sturdy ground just now? Not really. So? I don’t know. We’ll see what happens in the many years ahead. But it’s cool right now. Yeah, working on the Facebook page stuff, probably like everybody’s known for a long time, it’s a good way to build your business, LinkedIn stuff, trying to connect, trying to do more networking, I’m trying to email people right now that I have connected with it. And then try and like send them some stuff, some information or you know, just trying to like, get a hold of them, and do some little phone call, chats to try and get to know each other. I’ve got a couple of set up this week that it’s like with insurance people and financial planners and agents and stuff. So find people to talk to, and definitely interested in trying to get some information, at least about that, and about some stuff related to that. But that was part of it. I’m trying to think of, if I want to be a photographer, like what’s the other stuff that I have to outsource? Right, like bookkeeping, accounting, just things like that, like how, how do I effectively process my taxes? Do I need to do that on my own? Do I need to pay someone 200 bucks, that can be kind of in my corner and help me out? Or do I need a lawyer on retainer, I’ve always wanted that I can’t really afford that kind of expense. For for it to be any kind of peace of mind to me,

a lawyer on retainer, who can I call a lawyer. But I don’t really end up in that much legal trouble. I figured though, as a photographer, I probably need some kind of insurance. But some some kind of insurance, some kind of equipment insurance. But really just some kind of onsite insurance that assures me to be a worker in a workplace. You know, on a work site. I’ve heard that before for a lot of independent contractors that that’s a necessary part. Like a friend of mine that does construction stuff, and building that like he, he works for somebody that I think like still has to have his insurance to participate on a worksite which is kind of weird thing we might come in and do some specialized thing. So yeah,

that’s come up a few times for me in the past, like when I was doing some of the some stuff for the fair that came up like, Hey, we’re

gonna need you to be insured to be out here for some amount. I don’t know, if I trip over a fair ride and the fair ride falls over. I’d be liable. I guess. Somebody’s got to get sued. Or insured, I guess. Now, yeah. Probably most everything that I’m going to be talking about today, on this episode of the billionaire photo podcast, probably have some content coming up on Instagram, you can check out the podcast, the feed, you could check out the photos of trying to work on a new gallery over there all at Billy Newman photo.com. And I think that should be just about everything. If you’re a listener and you want to network with me, shoot, go through my website. Let’s talk sometime. I want to talk to people. But it should be just about everything for this episode of the billionaire moon photo podcast. Thanks a lot for listening everybody. Talk to you again next time.