I have the pleasure of interacting with several types of people through the internet and social networks. One guy who has helped me get my site off the ground is Jayme Blackmon, he owns his own design studio named West Main Studio. We both know the value social marketing can have for small business owners in order to help get their business in the eyes of potential clients. I am still new to the game and my business has a ton of room to grow but I wouldn’t be where I am right now without social marketing sites like twitter and facebook.

I want my site to not only be a place to see my latest work and all my awesome clients, but where people can come and see someone who owns a small business and strives to see it grow and become successful. Along the way I want to share my journey with you and give any tips I have found helpful for my own business, in hopes that you too can pursue your own dreams.

I invited Jayme Blackmon here to my blog to be a guest blogger on my site to give people some free tips to help them grow their business. If you want to take it a step further, Jayme also offers great services to further catapult a business in the social marketing world and would love to help your business out. So go ahead and visit his site if you are interested and want some help in the social marketing department. Enjoy this article from Jayme!

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The Internet world has grown leaps and bounds in just the 2009 year alone. Getting yourself in front clients, customers and readers can be quite the daunting task especially if you don’t have marketing revenue to push your product or service. It’s hard work, but there are several ways you can increase your online visibility for free!

Create a Twitter account. It’s very easy to do and can be setup within minutes. Utilize their search feature to find topics that interest you and start following users that talk about them. Start making tweets about your service as well as link to interesting articles that may relate to your topic as well. You’ll be surprised how quickly your follower-base grows.

The other big name from 2009 is Facebook. If you don’t have a Facebook account, get one! It’s a great way to re-establish old connections that can turn into wonderful business leads. Doing business with someone you know eliminates the non-trust factor, especially if your business is Internet-based. Also, if you’ve stepped into any restaurant or fast food joint, you surely have seen “become a Facebook fan”. Fan pages are quick and easy to setup if you already have a Facebook account and it’s a clever way to push your services in front of hundreds and thousands of people in an instant.

Just as I’m doing right now, blogging is a great way to increase you online credibility. You can setup a free blog on services like Blogger or Wordpress and start blogging immediately. Be creative and write about things you like and dislike, it doesn’t always have to be about your service or business. Once you write an article, post the link on Twitter and Facebook. Spread the news!

Another great way to garner attention is to give away products or services. For instance, I’m a web designer and I could give away a free icon set or a free template design. Announce the giveaway on Twitter, Facebook and your blog. People love free and it’s viral.

YouTube, Vimeo and other video websites allow you to upload videos for free. If you have a video camera, a webcam or even a digital camera you can tap into yet another social media circle. You could create a video explaining your services or even a screencast if it’s an online product. Most video social sites will allow you to use “tags” to associate keywords with your video topic.

Just the free aspects of social marketing can keep you busy. Sometimes outsourcing a couple of these methods can really benefit you, especially if you are a small business with no online exposure. Getting a website done professionally is certainly worth your while. This is one place where I don’t recommend cutting corners. I run my own web studio and we offer a variety of packages for small businesses. If you do decide to cut corners, you can download themes and just plug-in your information and photos.

Once you have launched a website, you need to make sure it’s search engine visible. An established blogger like myself, can write an article, create a video and market/review your company and you can see instant results. Sometimes professional services are good investments for getting your online presence established or pushing you ahead of your competition.

All in all, social media is free and definitely isn’t rocket science. It’s just a tool for gaining exposure and followers. Putting in hard work to drive social media methods actually produces the results.

I had the pleasure of 2nd shooting with Ben and Chrys Q last month and capture the wedding of Calvin and Jennifer at Northwest Bible Church in Dallas. I had such a great time getting to work together with some of my favorite photographers in the area. Calvin and Jennifer had a beautiful wedding and a great ceremony, it was great to be able to be apart of the day. Here are some of my favorite shots from the day, I’ll try and round some more images up in a slideshow. Enjoy.

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I have had a few requests from photographers wanting to know a little more about my post processing. I don’t keep it a secret since essentially all I do is use actions other people have created. This post will not be as detailed as my last one, I suggest reading the first post I did on my signature images if you want to know more about what I do in lightroom and photoshop. My first post lacked details on my final step in photoshop where I give my images a final ‘tone’ or ‘colorshift’. This was mainly because I forgot which actions I used exactly and didn’t want to attempt to recreate them again. I mentioned in my last post that right now I am using The Colorshift Actions from Jesh De Rox to add the final look to my images. One of the main reasons I love this set of actions is how flexible they are and how they allow you to experiment and create an action mix that is your own. Experimentation is the key word in my post-processing, I do not like to use an action as it is, I enjoy getting to manipulate each part of the action until I get the ‘feel’ I am looking for in the end.

Below I have 2 images that I made sure and saved my process as I was going along.

In this final image I used the Rainforest action from the Colorshift Action Set and added the Get Faded (autumn) action from the Totally Rad Action Set 2. I am not going to spend time going through each adjustment layer and what opacity I set the action at because I want to encourage you to experiment yourself and find a mixture that you enjoy.

The image below is an example of the post-processing I used on several of the images from this particular set, this is a great example of me experimenting with an action and making it my own. You will notice I used the action Blueberry Night from the Color Shift Actions, I added 2 additional fill color layers to give the image the final look below. Setting time aside to experiment with the actions you own is great because you start getting an idea of what each action does and then you can decide how you can add to each action to push it further.

I hope this little behind the scenes look at my post processing was helpful for many of you. Just have fun and experiment with actions and see what you can create. I highly recommend using Totally Rad Actions and the Color Shift Actions in order to have the ability to experiment and make these actions your own!

Blog has been a little silent these past couple of weeks, but rest assured I am still around! I have been recovering from a little sickness bug that hit last week and I am now starting to feel better. A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to meet one of my favorite photographers, not only did I get to meet him but I also got to join in one of his first workshops! I can’t tell you how excited I was about this workshop, I still don’t think I have the exact words to describe how I felt. Because of his creativity and unique ‘look’, he inspired me to pursue photography and be just as passionate,  and to top it all off he is an incredible christian guy. His passion goes way beyond just photography, and is centered around God, which has always attracted me more and more to his work. I knew just having the chance to be around him would inspire me and push me to be a better artist. Here is a picture of of Jeremy Cowart and I after the workshop. (If you want to read a full recap of the workshop click the link after the image below)

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As I am preparing to go out of town to Nashville for another workshop, I just wanted to share some of my behind the scenes photos from the Chrys Q Workshop. I wish I had more to say, but I said it all in my last post. Enjoy!

I thought this first one was funny to share as a behind the scenes shot just because you can see another photographers pocketwizard in the bottom right corner of my shot. We were all REALLY close to each other and whoever that may be is right at my feet.

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