Music Photography | Landscape Photography | Portrait Photography

My Rules of Social Media Engagement

Feb 10, 2010 social media

In my last post I touched on my use of Social Media as a tool to get my work out to the public. The next day I read a great blog post by Valeria Maltoni discussing how she participates in Social Media. (Complete article can be found on Valeria’s blog by clicking here) She wrote:

“You cannot be expected to know what my settings are on each network. If I don’t give you a reference point, you will likely use your own settings as context. It’s not fair to you, nor it is to me.”

I wanted to step back a moment and outline the five Social Media Networks that I use and let everyone know what to expect from me. Outline My Rules of Engagement in Social Media.

FACEBOOK: I have two facebook pages. I use one for photography and the other is personal. My Facebook Photography page is an outlet for me to interact with people who have questions or want to know a little more about me. Also like my blog, I try to highlight other artists, photographers and musicians. It’s a quick easy way for me to push out messages or to post a quick link to a photograph I just shot. My personal Facebook page is a place where I do whatever I want to do and the people I know have come to expect that of me.

TWITTER: My username on twitter is @grtaylor2 and it is the place where my messaging is the most inconsistent. I will push out shortlinks to my photos, my blogposts, my friends blogposts or my tweets will be conversational in nature. Sometimes, I will tweet something that I find amusing and sometimes I will tweet about someone who is making me crazy. The main themes for my tweets are: photography, music, marketing topics, current events and issues relevant to my city – Tempe, AZ. I try hard to add value with most of my tweets to my followers but I admit sometimes I do tweet the inane. If you follow me on Twitter please let me know if my tweets ever get too inane and I become “That Guy”.

(TWITTER Update 3/19: I like the #followfriday thing. Over the time I have used twitter I have started to follow many people who were recommended through the #followfriday phenomenon. My #ff policy is to push out only one follow friday tweet per week.  All recommendations will be from one vertical or with like interests. This way I feel like I am adding value to the conversation and to the folks who follow me.)

YOUTUBE: The videos I post on my blog are hosted on YouTube – I use this network mostly as a media library. If you subscribe to my You Tube Channel you should expect music videos, my FOCUS web series and maybe some travel stuff. I tend to not get very personal on YouTube. And of course I do love watching funny videos on YouTube- so if you know of any great one please send me a link. (Here is a link to my favorite)

FLICKR: I post my non contracted photography to Flickr. My photography typically falls in the categories of: Concert Photography, Landscape Photography and Portrait Photography (there is some architectural photography mixed in but that’s not the norm for me.) I brand almost all of my photos and I post them under the creative commons license. If you want to use any of my work for non commercial purposes please feel free to – just properly attribute the photo. I try to foster collaboration as much as possible and for that reason I make all of my EXIF properties public. Please comment with questions etc.

That pretty much covers My Personal Rules of Engagement For Social Media. I want to interact with everyone as much as possible but I wanted to let you know what your getting into. Please know that I will not be offended if at any time you decide to unsubscribe to my blog or stop following me on Twitter. (NOTE: I am an eternal optimist so please don’t expect a lot of Doom & Gloom from me.)

In a nutshell, my use of Social Media focuses on: making connections, helping others make connections, learning and staying informed. How are you using Social Media or maybe more importantly why are you using Social Media? Leave a comment, leave a question – let’s discuss…

Tags: about me, az photographer, Concert Photography, Greg Taylor, GRT2, GRTaylor2, Landscape Photography, photo blog, professional photographer, professional photography, rules of engagement, social media, tempe, tempe photographer