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SPRING AND SUMMER TEMPLATES

Spring and Summer photography templates have arrived! Take a look today! 

This template suits a portrait photo and below a landscape photo.

What to do with all those gorgeous spring photos? Offer your clients an Easter Card for their friends and family!

SNEAK PEEK - EASTER AND SPRING

Here is a little insight to what I am designing for Spring 2017! The cutest bunny Easter Card to offer your photography clients after your Spring Mini Sessions. Keep checking the store for the rest of the designs, including marketing boards and more cards.

VALENTINE SALE NOW ON

 Love is in the Air! and it's time to SAVE again at paperlarkdesigns.com

There is a 40% discount on every purchase. Happy St Valentine's Day to you all!

BLACK FRIDAY SALE GOODNESS

All us girls know the deal this weekend. Our fingers hovering over Checkout buttons all across cyberspace. This Black Friday Sale from Paper Lark is no exception. 

So at the stroke of midnight get off the starting blocks with a BANG and save big on your photography templates!

Stay Creative!

Alys  xox

 

Struggling with overwhelm? IRIS Software will get your photography business organised!

It’s an all too familiar scene. Sitting at the computer, burning the midnight oil, guzzling down coffee to try and stay awake to get caught up during busy season. All the emails, editing, blogs… will it ever end? If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you might be one of the many photographers out there who would benefit from streamlining your business tasks! By putting systems in place, not only will it make the most of your time, but it can help grow your business as well. 

Iris Works offers everything you need for studio management. Their tools include client and lead management (including group features for email marketing), workflows to streamline your tasks, the ability to create documents, send invoices, gallery hosting, and automated messaging. You can keep track of everything from your studio dashboard! 

One of their most popular features that no one else has is Scout! With Scout, you have the ability to find and track your favorite locations, upload photos or notes of that spot, and even see what other pins photographers are sharing. (Which is great for those out of town sessions.) You also have the ability to share the location with your clients with directions. All from within Iris! 

Iris Works offers a 30 day free trial so you can see how awesome this system is.  It’s super affordable at just $25 per month or if you pay annually you save 10%. Gallery options are optional add ons depending on how much storage space you need starting at $15 per month.  

The Iris system is easy to set up and will have you organized in no time. Head over to Iris-Works and sign up for a 30 day free trial to see why everyone is loving this new system!

And they’re offering 20% off to all PaperLark readers! 

Stay Creative!

Alys 

x

Halloween Freebies

We love a bit of spooky! Download these FREE fun graphic overlays for your photos, clients cards, sneak peeks. Have a fun Halloween!

Got feedback?  I’d love to know…how do you plan to use these Halloween Freebies? 

Comment and let me know your ideas and success stories below.

Alys x

 

 

HASHTAGS FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS - The ultimate guide

Not everyone is a social media butterfly but in today’s world, social media platforms are one of the most effective forms of marketing to your clients. It engages your clients in conversation that develops your ongoing relationship through trust. Trust in you as a photographer and in your brand.

But what if you’re not getting the engagement and conversations you would like? Enter the nifty Hashtag!

What can the hashtag do for you?

By adding hashtags, your post will be found and read by many more potential clients.

How?

• Hashtags make your brand become part of a larger conversation on social networks.

• Hashtags allow you to reach other potential customers that might be searching for that hashtag on a given network. Eg #Senior2016 #NewbornPhotography #SeattleFamilyPhotographer

• Hashtags make your content relevant to issues in real time. Find what is trending at www.google.com/trends and add trending hashtags to your posts - but only if they are relevant or if you can angle it so it is relevant.

I’ll have a piece of that pie I hear you say! Yes me too :)

So what should a photographer hashtag? 

• Use hashtags that identify YOU. Eg: #yourbusinessphotography. Your brand hashtag can lead your clients straight to your hub of awesomeness. If someone is looking for content related to you, it is easier for them to simply 'hashtag' search your business name and viola! A full history of your business at their finger tips — they can see samples of your work, if anyone else has used your services and even former client comments on their sessions. Instant social proof of your awesomeness!!
• Create a hashtag series. Create a brand within your brand. Using the same word at the beginning of a hashtag can identify your business. Eg. Create a hashtag series around the word 'capturing' #CapturingSeniors2016 or #CapturingMaternity. Then ask clients to share the photos using #CapturedBy(insertyourbusinessname). 
• You can literally hashtag anything around you during a shoot.  Shooting at a great location? hashtag it! #JohnsonNationalPark #PalmBeach. Shooting a particular type of session? hashtag it! #FamilyPhoto #MaternityPhotography. Why? Since tons of users are probably looking for the same events or locations, it will increase the chances of your content being seen. In turn increasing clients contacting you to book a photography session. 
• Hashtag your personal life. If your business and personal life blend on your Instagram feed, using hashtags that are relevant to YOUR life, but have nothing to do with your photography, is a great way to share your life with your clients. Eg: #JohnsonKids #JohnsonFamilyVacation. Sharing this part of your life forms such a strong connection with you as their photographer that sets you apart from your competition. They already feel like they know you, your family and what you are about. 

Rules for making great Hashtags

1. Never use spaces. None, whatsoever. If you need to separate words, use capital letters instead of spaces. Adding capitalization does not change the search results for any hashtag.
2. Never use punctuation in hashtags, they just don't work. Full stops, exclamation marks, semicolons, asterisks or ampersands. All of them are off limits inside of hashtags. 
3. Avoid extremely long hashtags, unless they are trending on Twitter or Facebook. When hashtags are too long, your audience will tend to skim over the entire post — your post should be quick and catchy enough to capture their attention. Plus, who can seriously read #photoshootalldaylikeaboss while scrolling through a feed? Keep it simple #PhotoBoss
4. Never post an all hashtag post. Give your content some depth. Viewers need to know why you're using the hashtags that you've used by reading the comment around it. They need context. 
5. Numbers make great hashtags. Especially when you're posting seasonally. Eg #ClassOf2016 #Senior2015
6. Keep hashtags short and sweet and relevant to the post that you're creating. Sites like Facebook and Tumblr allow you to use an unlimited number of hashtags in a single post. However users turn to social media for the content, not paragraphs full of words and symbols — they will avoid your content if you have a ton of hashtags clumped together within your post.

How many hashtags in one post?

Instagram will only allow you to hashtag 30 words on any one photo — even if you hashtag in separate comments. Use one to three hashtags in your main caption. Hide any relatable hashtags in a separate comment on Facebook or Instagram — once someone else comments, your hashtag hoard will no longer be visible to users scrolling through. This will prevent your promo message from getting lost in the hashtag haberdashery like this: 

"Express your love this Father’s Day with a mini Daddy and Me session! Book your #appointment today and receive a Father’s day template bonus"

Then add hashtags into the comments "#minisession #photography #photoshoot #FathersDay #DaddyandMe # template #howtophoto #love #dads #photoshoot #booknow #PhotooftheDay #June"

Twitter will only give you 140 characters which means you need to be short and sweet with your hashtags. It’s also advisable to not use up the full 140 characters to give re-tweeters a chance to add their comment to the tweet.

"On the #blog today is Kayley’s #seniorphotography. She is rocking the #classof2016 at #jeffersonhighschool" 

You’ll get the most out of hashtagging on your Instagram and Twitter feeds because they use an algorithm that helps people find your content based on your hashtags. While sites like Facebook and Tumblr allow you to use hashtags, it’s harder for users to find your content on them. If you want to ensure your content is being seen, try posting on weekdays between 11 AM and 3 PM when users are more actively trolling for stuff to do. While you can post pictures over the weekend, some users don’t usually interact with the content posted, so maybe save these days to post about updates on your personal life.

Happy Hashtagging!

#alys ;)

 

 

 

 

This week's FREE Download! - ‘Lightroom step-by-step Workflow Guide’

I love giving you freebies!

I know some of you have sore eyes and a sore back from endless hours of photo editing! Sound familiar? Don’t waste time trying to fix those images after a long day of photography.

This week’s freebie is a “Mastering Lightroom's Develop Module” eBook, by pro Andrew Gibson. He’s a great guy! He shares his actual step-by-step workflow for streamlining post-processing. And it is FREE FREE FREE oh yes sir-ee!

 

 

Access your FREE Lightroom Guide ebook download here

Be quick! Freebie only available up until June 29th 2015

Happy workflowing!

Alys

10 Tips for Daddy and Me mini sessions

Let’s think about it…if YOU are full of ideas for Daddy & Me' sessions, you will build hype with your clients. They will be super excited about booking up and will definitely spread the word too. 

So lets jump straight in with 10 tips for an awesome Father's Day promotion....and before I forget: BONUS! Download your FREE Father's Day overlay templates at the bottom.

TIP 1. Use Relevant Hashtags 

To increase your mini session engagement on social media, use relatable hashtags like:

#FBF (flashbackfriday), #TBT (throwbackthursday), #DaddyandMe, #FathersDay and #NotSoSelfieSunday

You want to use hashtags that are both easily recognized as well as relatable to your content.

However, only using extremely popular hashtags — such as #photography — your content can get lost in the sea of millions. So to avoid that, also use hashtags that have a smaller amount of uses and that are specific to your photos.

You can create your own hashtags or use a combination of quirky hashtags like #LiveLovePhotography, #MiniPhotoSession, or #MiniPhotoShoot — these all will help the visibility of your brand.

Create your own business name hashtag too so new and existing clients can search for your work— I use #paperlark.

TIP 2. Join your clients on a Daddy Daughter date

For a mini session that includes some father-daughter bonding, photograph your clients during a Daddy Daughter Date. Capture shots when dad knocks the front door with a bunch of flowers, to the drive to the cinema or trip to a special picnic in the park. Beautiful!

When I was a kid my Dad and I ventured out on our ‘Poo Patrols’ dates together! He would push me in a wheelbarrow across our field and I would shout out when I spotted a good dollop of horse poo for his veggie patch. Ah priceless! ;) What I would give now for a photo of that.

TIP 3. Remake an old family photo 

If your clients have older children, let them choose an old family photo from when they were little, then let them remake the shot with you. This idea is a winner with your clients and a winner for you.

If you blog a collection of shots in the weeks afterwards, it’s those kind of ‘oh so clickable’ blog posts that can go viral with comments and shares. 

TIP 4. Capture moments of Dad & child doing something they love to do together

From fishing from a pier to walking through the forest on daddy’s shoulders. Ask your clients what is their special connection and capture that bond.

TIP 5. Low cost hand-made signs are super effective and have huge cuteness value.

Just a handmade 'i love daddy' painted onto cardboard can capture any dads heart. Try shadow signs, chalk drawings on sidewalks or even a little finger paint on their hands and feet for the ultimate Father’s Day Photo gift.

TIP 6. Capture photos of Dad doing things only Dads would do when left alone with baby

Such as using baby to act out scenes from Batman or performing a baby toss that tends to make any mom’s heart skip a beat.

TIP 7. Moments of Dad cuddling or snuggling with his children 

A photo sure to make every momma swoon! They look fantastic framed or on canvas wraps if you are selling printable goods after the session.

TIP 8. Have your client’s dress their children to match Dad 

Wear the same costume as Dad, or dress as characters from their favorite movie. 

TIP 9. Host your mini-sessions with a scenic back-drop that is sure to bring out the nostalgia

A front porch or yard of the family house, a favorite family lake, or a park that holds family traditions. Tell your clients how memorable those shots will be in years to come.
 

TIP 10. Use these FREE Father's day overlays 

Cute text overlays! So many uses! Pop them over your client photos for social media promotion, overlay onto printed cards or use on your marketing to ramp up the sessions.

 

Click IMAGE above to DOWNLOAD

Important: Please share your thoughts and ideas directly in the comments. You can see a full range of Father's Day templates here

And if you found this helpful, please pass it along to your closest colleagues and friends — anyone you think could use a little extra mojo as they bring their Father's Day Sessions to life!

Happy designing!

Alys xoxo

 

NEW TEMPLATES IN STORE THIS WEEK - AND A WIN A FREEBIE

Enjoy this visual round up of Paper Larks latest templates in store this week.

ENTER TO WIN number 1 to 4 of the spring templates below head over to Paper Lark Facebook 

Just comment and share the post to be in a chance receive them for FREE! 

 1. Spring Marketing Board Template IE016

2. Spring Marketing Board Template IE013

3. Spring Marketing Board Template IE014

4. Spring Marketing Board Template IE015

5. Spring Marketing Board Template IE011

6. Spring Marketing Facebook Timeline Template

7. Newborn Marketing Board Template IN004

8. Senior Marketing Board Template IS002

9. Sunlight Sessions Marketing Board Template IG009

10. Senior Mini Accordion Album Template FS001

11. Senior Graduation Announcement Template AG011

HOW CAN YOU WIN 4 OF THE SPRING TEMPLATES?

TO WIN number 1 to 4 of the spring templates above head over to Paper Lark Facebook 

Just comment and share the post to be in a chance receive them for FREE! 

Stay Creative

Alys x