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Friends, Fans and Followers

Use social media to build a following and share new photos instantly

VIMEO AND YOUTUBE
With the advent of still cameras that offer HD video capabilities over the last few years, video channels like Vimeo and YouTube have taken on a new importance to photographers who are making the jump to video. Even if not working in the motion-picture space, a YouTube or Vimeo channel can still be used for slideshow-style videos of your portfolio or just to share videos that you find interesting, which can bring viewers back to your work.

In general, Vimeo is more respected for the quality of video and playback that it offers, with a free Basic account or a Plus account with much higher limitations on video uploading and embedding for just under $10 a month or $60 a year. YouTube is still champion when it comes to traffic, though, and the site has recently adopted HD viewing capabilities. Both sites offer embedding for adding video to blogging sites and your own personal website, which is particularly advantageous for photographers who have to pay for the bandwidth that large HD videos consume.

APPLICATIONS THAT HOLD IT ALL TOGETHER
Getting into the nuts and bolts of each of these topics requires a full article, if not a complete book, to fully explore, so this is a general primer to give you the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. You may find that one or another will appeal to you the most, or a combination will give you the “online presence” that you’d like.

If you prefer to use some of these services in tandem, there are a variety of applications that can help you to synchronize your accounts, like Blackbird Pie, which will publish your Twitter tweets on your blog or website, or Twitterfeed, which will feed blog posts to Twitter. Twitter even has a Facebook app.

For smartphone users, many social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and blogging sites like Posterous, Tumblr and WordPress, provide applications for uploading images. The Plixi application allows you to upload images to both Facebook and Twitter accounts via a single interface, as well as MySpace, LinkedIn and Foursquare.

It can be awkward at first when you’re new to the party, but applications like these make it easier to jump in and join the conversation.

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