Photography Marketing, Branding, and Entrepreneurship Tips

Tips I wish I knew if I started over again: The goal is not to become ‘successful’ as a photographer, because once you achieved it, the nagging question — “Then what?” Perpetual curiosity and creative productivity as a better goal. To travel the world, to live abroad and pursue and focus on your photography as a noble goal. The most valuable ‘brand’ you have is your first and last name. Whenever you make a YouTube video or write anything, always best to mention your first and last name. Names last; “brands” don’t. When making YouTube videos or vlogging, best to just say what is on your mind as a ‘stream of consciousness’. Don’t pre-rehearse. Best to just do it in ‘one take’– even if you mess up, it seems more real and authentic. People don’t care how ‘good’ you are, they care about how authentic you are. The best marketing barbell is focus 90% on your personal self-hosted blog (signup bluehost.com and install wordpress.org) and 10% on YouTube. Best to give away 99% of your stuff for free, and charge a lot of money for 1% of your stuff. Don’t focus on gear and gear reviews (these will become stale within a few months or a year). Focus on ‘evergreen’ information — information that will still be relevant and useful 10 years from now. Longevity is the best signal of success rather than short-term fame. Aim to be relevant for DECADES. You can call yourself successful once you’ve been in the game for 3 decades (Dr. Dre, JAY Z, Eminem, Snoop Dogg etc). Don’t become married or trapped to any camera brand. Best to be brand and gear agnostic — just use what is best for your own purposes. Social media is a trap. If you don’t pay money for your platform, you’re being suckered. Avoid ‘social media sharecropping’ (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, etc). Do you remember Flickr and MySpace? To expand your creative canvas, consider yourself a ‘visual artist’ rather than just a ‘photographer’. The best way to stand apart and to differentiate yourself is to cross-pollinate all of your interests and passions. For example for me (ERIC KIM) — Street photography, sociology, entrepreneurship, and philosophy. Any single genre is a trap. Associate yourself with a certain color to impute a certain color with your brand concept. In the past I used a tiffany-blue green-blue color, and more recently, a crimson red. Stick with a certain color for a long time, but also allow yourself to change it up when you want (lately I am more drawn to a highlighter lime-green). Your first 10,000 blog posts are your worst. Everything you create is a stream of becoming. There is no end-game. To never stop is the end-game. For more entrepreneurial inspiration and motivation, best to read philosophy than any modern-day texts on entrepreneurship. The only good book on entrepreneurship is written by a philosopher/entrepreneur (Peter Thiel, Zero to One). Also Nassim Taleb as great for entrepreneurial ideas (Antifragile, Skin in the Game, Black Swan, The Bed of Procrustes, Fooled by Randomness). Any books by Nietzsche as uber-motivational. It seems that solo entrepreneurship and you becoming a ‘full stack’ solution is the best one (in praise of sole proprietorship). You will never find anyone else as passionate as you about what you do. More photographers should also become bloggers. Ideas are more valuable than photos.