Your social media workflow

[OrangeCuse44]

Love it or hate it, social media/networking is here to stay and it's only growing in popularity by the day. Given the amount of resources available, it can easily become overwhelming to keep everything up to date. By everything, I mean your blog/website, Flickr/social photo sharing site, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.

Personally, coordinating a blog, Flickr account, and posting to Facebook is time consuming, but for an amateur trying to get his name out there, social media is an essential tool that simply can't be ignored. I post this with the hopes that as professional down to hobby photogs, we could possibly help each other out with managing all these social networking options. I'll post my workflow below, but admittedly, and part of the reason I created this thread, is because I think it's terrible. Given my lack of free time from the start, keeping everything up to date is time consuming. Hopefully with the input of everyone here, people like myself can improve their processes.

After all my actual photography work is complete (shooting/processing), this is what I do:
1. Post photos to Flickr, tag, add to groups, etc
2. Update wordpress blog/site linking to previously mentioned Flickr photos
3. Link to WP blog on Facebook

Probably doesn't seem like a lot to do, but with zero automation and manually doing everything, it takes a while. I haven't even entered the Twitter world yet, but I'm sure that's only a matter of time. Are there any ways you automate all this "cross syncing"? What works for you?

 

[flosseR]

personally I have them all linked together with a Wordpress blog driving it all and VERY few manual steps. Posts automatically get pushed to twitter, which is growing in following, notifications send to the blogoshpere and facebook additions. flickr itegration exists but I don't do flickr that often.

There is wordpress plugins for EVERYTHING

//F

 

[pdxflint]

You might want to take a look at Photoshelter.com for a solution. I know several photographers who use this to keep their workflow manageable, especially with social networking sites.... it's not free, but I think there's a reasonable cost, depending on how much you need. Anyway, I met Grover Sanschagrin, who developed the site, at a photo seminar, and was impressed with what they offer.

Photoshelter is also on facebook. Just do a search for photoshelter. At least check it out for some ideas.

 

[OrangeCuse44]

personally I have them all linked together with a Wordpress blog driving it all and VERY few manual steps. Posts automatically get pushed to twitter, which is growing in following, notifications send to the blogoshpere and facebook additions. flickr itegration exists but I don't do flickr that often.

There is wordpress plugins for EVERYTHING

//F

Would you care to share the plugins you are using? I don't mean to be lazy, but if there are a bunch of options, knowing the best would be helpful. Thanks!

 

[HBOC]

This is a great topic. I personally think that getting out there physically (face to face) is the best way to get your name out. There is a website that is cool that i found through a guy who bought a Sigma lens from me a month ago. Meet Up. It all depends on how active an area you live in, etc.

Also, I have a trial on smugmug right now. I am going to check out PBASE as well. I was going to write my own site, but i simply do not know a ton yet about how to do some of the things i want. SmugMug allows HTML (you can customize a ton, which is cool), so i wrote some of the content.

I am lucky to live in Portland, as we have the nations largest (continuously running Saturday market maybe) Saturday market. I am probably going to open a booth there and see what i can sell. I know my work is at least on par with what i have seen there. Get my name out. Tens of thousands of people pass through each weekend (800-900K a season pass through, it is held 9 months a year). I think that is the best way first and foremost.

As far as networking sites, I am all ears for that! I would like to get my "blog" and website out there as well!

 

[flosseR]

Ok, plugins that I use(d):
WordPress Flickr Manager <- flickr im and export
Add to Any <- Social media bookmark sharing
Akismet <- spam comments
Twitter Tools <- has a bunch of tools for twitter integration

and
WPtouch iPhone Theme <-- important: makes your blog iphone look alike when accessed with an iphone.

 

[M-5]

The problem for me is that I don't necessarily want to post the same images in various websites. For instance, if I'm doing a little photoshoot with friends, I would want to post the process of the photo shoot in a blog post with commentary, but only the final images would be put up on flickr.

And it's just a big pain for me, because I'll have the originals in iPhoto, certain edited ones on flickr or the blog and deleted from my computer to save space, and it's just a hassle. I hate that I have to drag a photo to my desktop from iPhoto to edit in Photoshop so I can save it over the original copy and then drag back into iPhoto and delete the original. And I don't edit in iPhoto because I hate the non obstructive editing---I feel like I'm wasting too much space. But I don't use Aperture or Lightroom mostly because I don't know how to work it into my Photoshop workflow and also because I like the simple organization of iPhoto.