The Point of Writing a Blog

In today’s exceedingly visual world images and videos are everywhere. Social media, advertisements, entertainment—it’s become the most important form of communication. Images allow us to convey information more quickly (and sometimes better) than the written word. We even use emojis to say things via text messages! So if photographers are fluent in visual, what’s the point of writing a blog?

There are several good reasons to have a blog—even for photographers.

Show your personality & establish your brand A blog gives you the opportunity to show your personality and to connect with those that are interested in your work. Share some of your background or life outside of photography and the things that make you unique. This doesn’t mean you need to share personal details—unless you want to—just whatever you are comfortable with. When readers get a glimpse of the person behind the camera, and they like what they see, they are more likely to want to do business with you.

Show your most recent work & tell a story Every photo won’t be portfolio-worthy and sometimes it’s difficult to keep updating your portfolio but a blog gives you the chance to share a few images from your latest shoot quickly and easily. Maybe there’s an interesting story behind why or how a certain image happened or a lesson you learned—with a blog you can share this and add a layer of interest to your work. Stories are powerful because they are memorable.

Let them see behind the scenes How did you create that image or what was it like during that photo shoot? Getting a peeks behind the scenes is always interesting even if your audience doesn’t know about photography. For example, in about about food photography I included the image below, which shows the simple lighting setup I used, to illustrate how I created the photos of the macarons.

Share your inspiration If you write about your passions, the reasons why you have chosen to do what you do, you will find that there will be others that will relate to you and they will be drawn to your work. It’s another great way to connect with people.

Search engine optimization SEO, or search engine optimization, is an excellent reason to have a blog. SEO can be complicated and intimidating for most of us, but in the age where “Google” is a verb, it’s something we can’t ignore. Words make the search engines happy and they make it easier for people to find you online.

That said, having a blog is generally a good idea but there are also a few reasons to refrain from having one and ways that blogging can be bad for business.

• Does it add value? Your clients (and potential clients) should get something out of it; learn something, be entertained, be inspired.
• Will it be updated regularly? If someone visits your blog and the last post was 18 months ago that won’t leave a good impression.
• Are there typos? Bad writing sends the message that you don’t care enough to proofread your words.
• Does it look good? Hiring a professional to design your blog is a good investment.

Setting up a blog is easy and you can get started for free. Plus, there are plenty of reasons having one is good for business. If you’re a photographer and you don’t blog, maybe it’s time to consider doing so now. In a future post I'll share the basics of getting started and some tools I recommend.