Dear friend,
In today’s social media crazy world, with Facebook and Instagram, why even make a photography blog? Isn’t it just easier to upload all your photos to Facebook and Instagram?
To start, the benefit of having your own photography blog is you own your own platform. This gives you more freedom, flexibility, and choice in your photography!
You have the power to dictate how your viewers experience your photos. If you upload your photos to Facebook or Instagram (Instagram is owned by Facebook, so essentially we can think of Instagram as just another mini-Facebook) you cannot disable the advertising around your photos!
It’s sad to say but at this point, when you upload your photos to Facebook or Instagram, you’re just the filler content in-between advertisements. How else can Facebook make money?
With your own photography blog, you can make your own blog as clean (or cluttered) as you desire. And you can directly monetize your photos if you desire to put advertising on your own blog. Better than you make money, than give the money to Facebook.
Also another benefit to blogging is you have so many more creative options! You can show epic mosaics of your photos, you can link to other forms of content (zip files, videos, audio files, or hyperlinks), and worry less about the “likes” on your photos.
Also, the benefit of having your own photography blog is that your content is far better archived: many years down the road, you can download your photos (full resolution) whereas all your Instagram photos are trapped in a low resolution! Unfortunately with Instagram there’s no option (yet) to re-download your photos.
The great thing with photography blogging is that it is the best form of a visual diary to have. And it’s open, meaning that Google can index and discover your photos and content! With Facebook or Instagram, you’re trapped in their golden cage.
Also with photography blogging, you can better build your own personal brand, to one day pursue more entrepreneurial things! I know for myself, 90%+ of my opportunities have come through blogging, NOT through social media.
The blog is the trunk of the tree, while social media has been the tiny branches on top.
I also think that having a photography blog is more fun! You can experiment more, innovate more, and think “outside the box”. It’s ironic with Instagram, it’s literally a box. A box with many smaller boxes. It’s a good platform to reaching lots of people, but not good for your individual innovative spirit!
I think secretly a lot of us want immortality through our photography; for our photos to outlive us. With a photography blog, you can do that! Your content is easily downloadable and accessible and archives by Google and other platforms and search engines. Which means, even after your site dies, your content will probably somehow live on!
What’s the best blogging platform?
Open source is always best. Sign-up for 1and1.com and install WordPress.org. WordPress.org is an open source platform, meaning it’s free, open, and has ton of online tutorials and support. It’s what has run this blog from 2010 to now (2018), and it continues to run strong, and grow strong like a tree!
I’m now 5,000+ blog posts deep, and I’m not planning on stopping to blog until the day I die! I want to be like a redwood tree, growing forever and (eventually) dying. But slow gradual growth, with deeper roots and wider branches is what I desire.
Start today!
Start now, today! Don’t delay.
Treat your own photography blog like your own public visual diary. You don’t even have to write. Just upload photos like you would do on Facebook or Instagram. Have fun with it and don’t take it too seriously!
To learn more of the step by step on how to make your own open source photography blog, sign up for my course, “Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Photography Entrepreneurship“.
Also for more inspiration, learn from my Photography Entrepreneurship 101 page!
Have fun!
ERIC
