As mentioned in my last post on this site, I have a new site. The Picture Pundit is now online and contains its first few articles.

Head over to Picture Pundit and get photography news, articles, and commentary that should make photographers think a bit.

Continuing the Conversation: Picture Pundit is a post from Social Photo Talk. Subscribe to the free Social Photo Talk e-newsletter

After having used an iPad for a couple months, I can say that most things on the device are fairly intuitive, but there are a lot of things to learn. I was given a copy of iPad: The Missing Manual for review and I’m happy to say that for someone who wants a comprehensive guide to Apple’s first tablet computer, the book didn’t disappoint.

The Missing Manual series of books sets out to be what one might expect: thorough user manuals for today’s products which lack the traditional printed manual of yesteryear. The overall tone is definitely in the how-to style although the author does a good job of injecting humor and real-world reality into the text instead of just dry instructions.

The first few chapters cover iPad basics including explanations of the hardware, buttons, and ports along with a tour though basic app navigation. A discussion talks about how to get online with the iPad (either wifi or AT&T’s 3G service). Since the book was written prior to AT&T’s recent rate plan changes, the rate information is no longer entirely accurate. After discussing connectivity, the next couple of chapters talk about surfing the web and using email on the device… these are probably the most important uses for many people. Topics move along to the other built-in apps including iBooks and the iBook store.

Although Apple’s iWork suite (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote) aren’t bundled with the iPad, they’re quite prevalent and are the subject of their own chapter. Following the productivity coverage a few chapters are dedicated to both basic and advanced usage of iTunes as well as the music-playing functions of the iPad. The book wraps up covering videos, photos, and MobileMe, Apple’s synchronization service.

I found the book to be light-hearted yet technically complete. As a previous user of Apple’s iOS mobile operating system, I found the iPad fairly intuitive but someone who is new to the platform would likely find the book to be a great resource for both getting started and then diving in deeper with the iPad and applications.

Interestingly enough, iPad: The Missing Manual is available in print (iPad: The Missing Manual on Amazon), or as an iPhone/iPad app (click to access on the ), but not as an iBook.

The book is less than $20 through Amazon and is a good, thorough look at the various hardware and software features of the iPad. If you’ve wanted a comprehensive iPad manual, this is a good solution.

iPad: The Missing Manual – Book Review is a post from Social Photo Talk. Subscribe to the free Social Photo Talk e-newsletter

Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photo Walk is the largest social photography event around – last year over 32,000 photographers participated in over 900 photowalks around the world.
The photo walk is a great opportunity to meet other photographers (both amateur and pro) in your area. During the couple hours of photography, you’ll meet new people, see how they shoot, and probably learn a thing or two. Walk leaders are encouraged to end the walk at some sort of social venue where participants can share their photos, talk about photography, and perhaps have a drink or such. Participants can enter their best photo into a contest with both local and worldwide prizes available.

It’s a lot of fun and a nice learning opportunity.

If you’re in the Vancouver (Washington) or Portland (Oregon) areas, I’d love to have you join me for the walk I’m leading in downtown Vancouver.

Social Photography Offline: Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photo Walk is a post from Social Photo Talk. Subscribe to the free Social Photo Talk e-newsletter

When I found out that Trey Ratcliff (of Stuck in Customs) was releasing a book about workflow, I was excited for a couple reasons. First, I’m kind of a workflow geek. I love reading about others’ workflows in hopes of improving my own. Secondly, Trey has a proven record in producing a large volume of high-quality work. He has, as they say, chops.

Trey’s new Digital Workflow for Photographers eBook is a good walkthrough of a modern digital photography workflow. My favorite part of the book is the beginning, where instead of diving right into technical details, the author explores a bit of the philosophy, mindset, and attitudes that will lead to a successful workflow experience. As he notes, if you go into your workflow looking at it as a tedious, complicated chore, you’re going to be a lot less effective than someone who looks at it in a more positive light.

After getting past the mental issues of an effective workflow, the book starts by talking about storage; one needs to have the files physically in order before looking at processing. Trey is an Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Bridge user; these are the programs in the screenshots in the book. His detailed workflow steps take care of filtering images based on quality, keeping track of the images’ status with regards to what has or hasn’t been done, processing the photos, and how and where to save the final output of your work.

The book is visually stunning. It’s obvious that a lot of effort went into the design, and if this is a “how to” or set of instructions, I think it might be the prettiest set of instructions I’ve ever seen.

There are two versions of his book. The basic version (currently $15.99) contains all of the material described thus far. For only $4 more, the reader can get a version with Trey’s bonus section, which increases the book by several pages and goes into the specifics of Trey’s workflow for managing his HDR photography including interactions between the various applications and how he manages the numerous files involved throughout the HDR process.

Overall I can recommend the book for someone looking for a good walkthrough of a solid digital photo workflow. The one downside would be that some of the steps are very tailored to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom; I’m sure the concepts would apply to any file management system but some of his power tips make use of Lightroom features. The book is reasonably priced, an easy read, and full of tips and tricks to better manage digital photos from the time they arrive on your computer through publication.

Buy Trey Ratcliff’s Digital Workflow for Photographers book.

Book Review: Digital Workflow for Photographers by Trey Ratcliff is a post from Social Photo Talk. Subscribe to the free Social Photo Talk e-newsletter

For several years, savvy bloggers have used the scheduling features of blog software to write posts in advance and have them published in the future (see How to Schedule Blog Posts). What about tweets? Should you schedule those as well?

Should You Schedule Tweets?

While scheduling blog posts is universally seen as a good practice, there is a bit of disagreement amongst some social media users about the practice of scheduling tweets. The mechanics are similar (write a tweet and schedule it for later – see below for specifics) but some feel that Twitter is more personal and more conversational; some feel that scheduling a future tweet removes the personal angle and isn’t genuine.

On the other hand, since Twitter is a transitory medium, if someone doesn’t happen to see your tweet because they’re not online when you post it, they probably won’t see it at all. A couple months ago I asked the question if it made sense to post blog links multiple times on Twitter and talked about how posting a link a few times makes sense to reach different Twitter audiences depending on the time of day (or even the day of the week). If we’re going to tweet something for a certain time, doesn’t it make sense to use a service to automate that tweet?

I think that using scheduled tweets as one part of your social marketing toolbox makes sense. I still post nearly all of my tweets manually, but I’ve started using a scheduler to tweets links for things at times of day when I might not be close to my computer (or I might forget). As long as you don’t start relying on scheduled tweets as your main method of tweeting, readers should find the tweets useful and not overwhelming.

How to Schedule Tweets

My favorite way to schedule tweets is with the scheduler now available in the new version of TweetDeck. It’s darned simple. Just type out your tweet, but instead of clicking on the “Send” button, click on the button with a small clock icon:

Enter the time to send the tweet, and click “Set Time.” That’s it. At the given hour, your tweet will be posted just as if you’d done it manually via TweetDeck.

I do want to note that a few folks have reported issues with the new scheduling feature of TweetDeck… it has worked fine for me and I’m not sure if the problems are very widespread but at least one Social Photo Talk reader has expressed concerns.

Don’t use TweetDeck? I know that HootSuite offers this same functionality, and there’s a standalone scheduled tweet service called Twuffer.

Do you Schedule? What Do You Think?

What’s your take on this? Do you schedule tweets? Think it’s a good idea? Think it’s too impersonal?

Photo by ericskiff, used under Creative Commons licensing

Schedule Your Tweets? Should You? How To? is a post from Social Photo Talk. Subscribe to the free Social Photo Talk e-newsletter

In the last couple of weeks there have been some great developments for photographers looking at interesting things to read. First, The Linked Photographers’ Guide to Online Marketing and Social Media was released. I’m currently reading through my copy and will post a full review once I get through the book. It’s all about marketing using blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, and the other topics that we often talk about here on Social Photo Talk, so I bet that I’ll have plenty to say.

I also am reviewing a copy of iPad: The Missing Manual, due to be released on June 1st. The iPad has quickly become an important tool for the modern photographer. I’m a fan of the “Missing Manual” series and I’ll be sure to post a review once I wrap up reading it. So far it’s really good, providing a thorough look at the iPad. Stay tuned for more information.

On top of those, HDR guru Trey Ratcliff (aka Stuck in Customs) just released an eBook on digital photography workflow. As someone who has mastered a workflow to produce a large quantity of high-quality (and well-processed) images, I look forward to reading all about his process. There are two versions of the eBook, a standard edition and a bonus version for just a few dollars more that includes additional material and some information specific to HDR. I’ve just ordered my copy and can’t wait to dive in.

Whew! That’s a lot of reading to do. I’ll be sure to share reviews when I get through, but I wanted to make you aware that if you’re looking to learn and want to read, there are some great options right now!

Read All About It! Three Relevant Books Right Now is a post from Social Photo Talk. Subscribe to the free Social Photo Talk e-newsletter

Due to some technical difficulties, this week’s podcast will get rolled into next week’s show. I’m excited to offer up this video however, produced by the folks at Photoshelter. In addition to their great photo hosting services, they produce a variety of resources to help photographers grow business. Here’s a great introduction to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Photographers:

Find out more about Photoshelter’s services if you’re looking for top-notch photo management including print and product orders, e-commerce, and electronic image delivery and licensing. Use the links in this article to receive up to $30 off if you sign up for a new Photoshelter account.

An Intro to SEO for Photographers is a post from Social Photo Talk. Subscribe to the free Social Photo Talk e-newsletter

Last week photographer Rick Sammon released an iPhone app called “Rick Sammon’s Social Media Marketing for Photographers” (iTunes link) and I was able to work through and review the app this last weekend. The application is essentially a five part movie, with Rick narrating and presenting with a slide deck showing onscreen.

The application features five segments, with each ranging from eleven to eighteen minutes of instruction. The first segment is an introduction to social media along with a few general thoughts on the role of social media in the business of photography. Part two dives into a lot of strategy and planning, including how to decide where to spend one’s time. The third video is mostly about Twitter, with specific tips on using Twitter to drive photo product and service sales. Part four is a mixture of topics including affiliate programs, SEO, iPhone/iPad apps, and web/video/tweet analytics. The final segment consists of business and motivational advice.

Overall I feel that it’s a great introduction to social media for photographers. The information would be useful for someone just starting out with social media and trying to figure out where to spend their time and energy. If you’ve already dove headfirst into social media you might find the information to be a bit too basic. That said, one big thing that I loved about the app is that Rick spends a lot of time sharing his little motivational and business nuggets of wisdom. I’d say that close to half of the screen time is devoted to the business aspects of social media instead of simply focusing on the “how to” aspect.

The only faults I could find in the app were a couple minor bits of misinformation with regards to specific software/tools, and I’ve let Rick now about those. I can assume they’ll be resolved with an update to the app.

At $5.99, the app is reasonably priced for a beginner who wants to get started with social media, and even for someone with more experience I think it’s worth it to get Rick’s insights into social media. Buy the app via iTunes.

Rick Sammon’s Social Media for Photographers: the App is a post from Social Photo Talk. Subscribe to the free Social Photo Talk e-newsletter

I’ve tried and used a variety of online services, software, books, and other resources as I have built my photography business using today’s social technologies and online tools. I’ve made recommendations along the way, and I just consolidated all of those into a master Resources page that lists my recommendations for blog software, WordPress themes, web hosting, books, email list management, printing services, and more.

Check out my page of Social Photography Resources.

Resources and Recommendations for the Social Photographer is a post from Social Photo Talk. Subscribe to the free Social Photo Talk e-newsletter

One consistent theme amongst a lot of conversations I have with photographers is that they’re pretty sure they should have a blog, but they’re not so sure what to do with it. It seems that a lot of photographers set up a blog, write four or five great posts, and then abandon it. I’d like to help photographers solve that problem.

Outsourcing your blog for $500/month (a la GhostRighters) isn’t the solution.

Next Wednesday (May 5th), I’ll be opening entrance to Photo Blog Boost, a learning program for photographers that want to give their blog a kick. The program will be a hybrid of technical how-to along with (and in my mind, more importantly), topics such as finding one’s focus, vision, topics to blog about, and how to write blog posts that will help a photographer’s business.

Information will be presented in various forms:

• online articles/tutorials in text form
• online video
• twice-weekly email updates
• each participant gets one 20 minute private coaching/consultation with me, to be scheduled at the participant’s discretion
• each participant gets unlimited access to send me email messages for Q&A

Photo Blog Boost will be presented as a 12-week program (although participants can work through the material at their own pace if they desire). Each week will focus on a topic, with tutorials, resources, and a “homework” suggestion related to that topic.

Exact membership details will be announced along with the program details next week, but I want to extend a special offer to current Social Photo Talk readers: subscribe to the Social Photo Newsletter and receive a 30% discount on the Photo Blog Boost program. Just before the program launches, I’ll send a personalized discount code to members of the newsletter mailing list (existing newsletter subscribers are already set to get a discount).

I want to help you take your blog to the next level. Drop by next Wednesday for all of the details and to register for Photo Blog Boost.

Photo by woodleywonderworks, used under Creative Commons licensing

Announcing Photo Blog Boost: Kick Your Blog Up a Notch is a post from Social Photo Talk. Subscribe to the free Social Photo Talk e-newsletter