Tag Archives: Online Marketing

Frameable Faces Takes Over Louisville At Imaging USA 2024!

How’s that for a title!  Okay so we didn’t literally take over Louisville at Imaging USA 2024 but it’s about going in with that mindset and we crushed it.  We brought the whole team – Doug, Ally, Angela and Michelle and we learned a ton, mingled with photographer friends old and new and we are pretty fired up to bring back that knowledge along with new equipment, techniques and materials for some new styles for our portraits!

*Side note: The formatting seems a little wonky on this blog post for some reason so there may be a couple of empty spaces you have to scroll past – don’t worry, there aren’t photos that aren’t showing up or anything.

Imaging USA 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Louisville Is A Cool City

We stayed right downtown and the Kentucky International Convention Center is a world class facility.  Downtown is pretty clean and walkable – surprisingly we can’t say there was a ton of energy down there – not a lot of people or traffic downtown but it was nice.  Here’s the view down market street from the hotel – keep in mind Doug took these photos with his iPhone – these are NOT professional photos lol…

Imaging USA 2024

Here’s the 4 of us at Irish Rover and we also loved Mussel & Burger Bar and Heine Brothers’ Coffee.

Irish Rover

Here we are at Heine Brothers’ Coffee with Metro Detroit photographer Sam Sarkis – one of the very best wedding photographers in the game.  Always great to spend time with other photographers we respect to talk shop!

 

Imaging USA 2024!

Imaging USA 2024

This was the home screen of the app that would pop up on your smartphone when you launched it and the app was really well done with every piece of information you could want on every seminar, and you could pick the ones you wanted to attend to populate your calendar and review them as well.  The entire center was decked out too… every wall and escalator with kiosks everywhere.

Imaging USA 2024

The keynote speaker was Victoria Labalme and she delivered a fantastic talk – very inspiring indeed.   Many of the speakers throughout the conference were fabulous.
 
We did a little Facebook Livestream (of course) right as we entered the expo for the first time where we were able to chat with just about every vendor of note in the business…

What’s also kind of funny it that it was around this time that we were “featured” (haha) in Miller’s Lab’s reel on Instagram – a couple people noticed and messaged us about it!

 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
View this post on Instagram
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

A post shared by Miller’s Professional Imaging (@millerslab)

One vendor we’ll highlight that we were REALLY impressed with was a company called Graphi Studio – we fell in love with some of their albums and we may just be offering some of them to you soon!!!

Imaging USA

And that’s the thing…. there was SOOOO much to see.

Here we are with Tomayia Colvin who was one of the speakers – she may have been the best one at Imaging USA – wow.  She’s based in Houston and she KNOWS her stuff.

Imaging USA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is Ron Nichols presenting – he’s the owner of ProSelect which is the software we use for our ordering meetings that you’ve all seen.  And boy are the new features coming to that exciting… Holy moly.  We hung out with Ron for a while at a sports bar to watch the Lions game (although we don’t want to talk about that too much… 🙁).

Imaging USA 2024

 

So yeah…. in conclusion, we crushed it.

Imaging USA 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The closing party was lit, putting a nice final touch on the proceedings!Imaging USA 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh – and how funny is this…

Look who made the cover of the Imaging USA wrap up blog post on their website???

Imaging USA 2024

See!  We TOLD you Frameable Faces TOOK OVER Louisville!!!!  LOL!!!

And there you have it – a wonderful week at Imaging USA 2024 and we hope you enjoyed the recap!!!

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Frameable Faces Photography

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Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
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Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
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Social Media Services: http://M10Social.com
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!
 
Get the Doug&Ally Morning Show PODCAST at the following links!!!
Pocket Casts ➡️ https://pca.st/2a51xcac
TuneIn ➡️ http://tun.in/tjz3HW

Hey – It’s Time To Celebrate A Few Headlining Headshots!

We love professional headshots here at the studio because we often get to help someone launch a new business, begin a new position, get honored with an award, get out there on the market (if you get our drift), or simply update their online presence – but regardless of the reason it’s always fun!  We have a few recent headshots to share with you here – one on the grey background and two on white, but we have plenty of options depending on what is required, and remember – if your car is older than your headshot you NEED a new one!  Hehe…

Marcie

Marcie is the new Regional President-Elect for Hadassah and she’s pretty excited for her new leadership role!  She’s perfect for it – we’ve known Marcie for years now and she’s a delight.  Congrats Marcie!

Headshots

Brooke

Brooke Allen is adorable – and you may know her voice from the last 5 years she spent on WWJ 950 – August 31st was her last day on the air and we are excited to follow her next endeavor!  We first met Brooke when she interviewed us for the West Bloomfield Civic Center TV show The Splash 4 years ago and we’ve collaborated with her a couple times since – we love Brooke!  You can follow her on Instagram!

Headshots

 

Jessica

Last but certainly not least is Jessica Seman whom we just met when she became a client for this headshot!  She’s a doll – she’s starting a business consulting biz and is in the process of launching her website as we speak!!!

Headshots

And there you have it!  Hope you enjoyed seeing these headlining headshots and learning about these ladies!  And of course, give us a shout if YOU need an updated headshot!

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Frameable Faces Photography
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Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
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Social Media Services: http://M10Social.com
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!
 
Get the Doug&Ally Morning Show PODCAST at the following links!!!
Pocket Casts ➡️ https://pca.st/2a51xcac
TuneIn ➡️ http://tun.in/tjz3HW

Her Royal Highness Princess Pinky Girl Graces The Studio!

Princess Pinky Girl herself (aka Jenn Fishkind) came to the studio for some updated photos for her website and we had a blast!  Jenn has really grown her brand with almost 5 million followers on her Pinterest page and a huge following of the fun, yummy and easy recipes at her blog.  You should check out her website and subscribe to her email newsletter – like immediately.  The girl knows a little something about branding so we were honored that she chose us to take hers to yet another level! 

Meanwhile this was such a fun session with candy, cupcakes and even a candy crown courtesy of our friend on the East Coast Ms. Candy Blog, and Jenn crushed it – she looked fabulous and we laughed a whole lot….  let’s get to a few highlights!

Her Royal Highness – Princess Pinky Girl! 

Princess Pinky Girl

Okay she’s adorable…

We have some fun behind the scenes from the session too – first from Facebook:

And we’re just bubbling over with joy over this next one…

Princess Pinky Girl

See what we did there…?

At this point we headed over to LaFata Cabinets here at the Orchard Mall – they’re our neighbors and they have a beautiful showroom!  A big thank you to them for letting us use their store!

Here’s a little more behind the scenes this time from Instagram over at Lafata Cabinets:

 

 
 
 
 
 
View this post on Instagram
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

A post shared by Doug & Ally Cohen (@frameablefaces)

And the fantastic result!
 
Princess Pinky Girl
 
And there you have it!  We hope you had a royally good time enjoying the highlights of our fun session with Jenn!
 
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Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
Social Media Services: http://M10Social.com
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!
 
Get the Doug&Ally Morning Show PODCAST at the following links!!!
Pocket Casts ➡️ https://pca.st/2a51xcac
TuneIn ➡️ http://tun.in/tjz3HW
 
 
BECOME A PATRON!  Subscribe at our Patreon page for tips, tutorials, podcasts and even individual coaching on your photography or social media!  

 

 

A Few Of Doug and Ally’s Recent Appearances!

We have had some wonderful opportunities lately to appear on a few different shows on the Internet as well as local TV and we thought we should gather a few of them in one place here on the blog! 

Appearances

Doug & Ally’s Recent Appearances!

Let’s start with the one Ally and I appeared together on which was on Fox 2 Detroit in a segment about how to take a great selfie for dating sites!  This one was pretty fun…

 

Next I appeared on my friend Rachel Moore’s livestream show Social Glue which airs on LinkedIn & YouTube ever week and covers all things social media with weekly news (which in the social media world can be like a month haha).

 

And last but not least here is my recent appearance on the Civic Center TV Megacast to discuss M10 Social and how businesses are adjusting and can adjust to the need for more of an online presence in the pandemic!  Give it a watch:

 

We hope you enjoy these appearances and there are actually more to come!!!

Get the Doug&Ally Morning Show PODCAST at the following links!!!
Pocket Casts ➡️ https://pca.st/2a51xcac
TuneIn ➡️ http://tun.in/tjz3HW
 
 
BECOME A PATRON!  Subscribe at our Patreon page for tips, tutorials, podcasts and even individual coaching on your photography or social media!  
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
Social Media Services: http://M10Social.com
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

 

 

The Doug & Ally Morning Show PODCAST is here!

 

Morning Show Podcast

We have a PODCAST!!!  I guess you could say this story began almost 5 years ago really… We have been livestreaming on Periscope since March 31st, 2015 – 5 days after the app launched in the app store.  Since then we’ve met people virtually through Periscope all over the world, spoken at the Periscope Community Summit (Summit Live) in San Francisco, visited and/or photographed people we’ve met in Biloxi, Pensacola, Orlando, Mobile, New York, and Harbor Springs, restored photos for people around the globe and had visitors from Periscope at the studio from Chicago, Delaware, Washington D.C., Kansas, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, England, and Australia!  Doug got one of his digital marketing clients from Periscope too!

It’s been one amazing ride.

Our show is on in the mornings generally Tuesday – Friday (and once in a while Saturday) sometime between 9:30 and 11:30EST and usually goes for about an hour.  There’s lots of fun banter and a crew who is known as the “Octosquad” – plenty of shenanigans and inside jokes, not to mention telemarketing pranks.

We even have a hilarious logo designed by the amazing Rich Nairn and you can see the “history” of the Doug & Ally Morning Show in the form of his doodles at our Pinterest board… should give you a chuckle.

Morning Show Podcast

Enter The Doug & Ally Morning Show Podcast!

Meanwhile, over time our peeps started suggesting that we start a podcast.  Podcasting is becoming a popular medium – people love to be able to listen to them on demand while they’re commuting, making dinner – in their car, on their headphones, with Alexa….  So after a brief series of episodes exclusively on our Patreon page which was subscription only, we decided to reboot it and open it up to the masses!  We have three episodes live already and you can listen to them at the following embedded players and/or links.  We’re still adding new platforms and we’re already almost everywhere you likely get your podcasts. 

One last thing.  The podcast is free.  IF you are inclined to support the podcast, we would like to treat this separately in terms of the time it takes to line up guests, record, and invest in the podcast.  We’d like to start upgrading to some proper equipment to upgrade the quality as well.  So if you want to visit the Patreon page and subscribe we will give a shout out on the show when we get supporters, we’ll send you a Doug & Ally Morning Show bookmark and we’ll keep growing it – maybe with behind the scenes goodies and who knows what else?  Like I said – it’s not required, but it’s worth it for some people to get involved and help grow this thing, and then we’ll get sponsors and maybe we can make a few dollars!  We’ll be grateful if you do!

The current episode is the one that shows on the embedded players below, but you can click on the links and binge ALL of them from the beginning!  Subscribe on your platform of choice and reviews (on Apple podcasts / iTunes for example) help too!

So enjoy, and there will be more to come – we’re just getting started!!!

Our host site is Anchor.fm and here is the podcast player for it.

You can also get us on Spotify:

RadioPublic:

Castbox – you can see all 3 episodes in their embedded player (kinda cool):

TuneIn (which is the one Alexa uses – you should be able to just ask Alexa to play The Doug & Ally Morning Show Podcast!

Here are ALL the links (so far….)

Pocket Casts ➡️ https://pca.st/2a51xcac
TuneIn ➡️ http://tun.in/tjz3HW
 
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Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
Social Media Services: http://M10Social.com
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

 

 

Senior Spokesmodeling With Sedona to Kickoff The Class of 2020!

It’s that time of year when we start photographing our new spokesmodel crew and it’s weird to say that the Class of 2020 is on its way!  Wow…  This is always a fun time for us because this is our team that we assemble each year to represent our studio and what better way to start it off than with Sedona whom we’ve known pretty much her whole life and some new backdrops in the studio!

Sedona Kicks of the 2020 Spokesmodels…

This isn’t Sedona’s first time on this blog either – we (our event photographer Angela) photographed her bat mitzvah a few years back and man does time fly.  She did a fantastic job on this session and she’ll be representing us at Walled Lake Northern High School.  So let’s get to the photos shall we?

2020

This is the first of three backdrops we used for the first time on this day and we love the olive earth tones here with the burnt orange top – Sedona looks awesome!

We also have some behind the scenes fun too – we like for you to see how these go and catch the vibe if you will – we have fun here!  If you’re not having a little fun then what’s the point right?  First we have the Instagram Live replay…

Now let’s take a look at a couple more backdrops and outfits!

2020

So cute!  Ripped jeans, barn door – got a little of that rustic country feel going!  Love the way that looks.

2020

That white-washed wood is another new one and Sedona was slaying the game at this point!

Let’s get in one more behind the scenes vid for a little more fun this time from our Facebook Live:

We’ll leave you with this one on our black backdrop:

2020

Just a nice simple pose to finish it off – Sedona is a rockstar!  And there you have it!  Look for more spokesmodels coming your way over the next couple of months – we are so excited for the 2020 crew!

BECOME A PATRON!  Subscribe at our Patreon page for tips, tutorials, podcasts and even individual coaching on your photography or social media!  
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
Social Media Services: http://M10Social.com
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

 

The Best Of The Class Of 2019 Senior Snapchat Stories!

What a year (so far) it’s been for our Class of 2019 seniors!  We decided to go back for the first time and create an EPIC recap video of the best of the Class of 2019 Senior Snapchat Stories for you!  We know not everyone has Snapchat, and even if they do they may not have caught all of our stories throughout the senior season so here we go… 

The Class of 2019 Senior Snapchat Stories

2019 Senior Snapchat

This video makes us smile the whole way through – it’s about 15 minutes long and includes everyone we shared highlights of publicly throughout – from Detroit to Ann Arbor, Pontiac to New York, summer, fall and winter, with plenty of wildlife, laughs, squad selfies and other shenanigans – but most of all our SENIORS!!!  We love these young people and there are still more of them to come so there will likely be a part 2… 

Enjoy!

BECOME A PATRON!  Subscribe at our Patreon page for tips, tutorials, podcasts and even individual coaching on your photography or social media!  
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
Social Media Services: http://M10Social.com
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

 

 

5 Totally Legit Reasons You Should Join Our Patreon Page!

Patreon is described in Wikipedia as “a membership platform that provides business tools for creators to run a subscription content service, as well as ways for artists to build relationships and provide exclusive experiences to their subscribers, or “patrons.”  We have our own Patreon, we are working really hard on it and we believe in it.  We hope you will join us and here are 5 totally legit reasons why you should.

Patreon

5 Totally Legit Reasons Why You Should Join Our Patreon Page

 

First of all, Patreon itself is really cool.

Let’s just talk about Patreon for a second if you aren’t familiar with it.  It’s a great website as well as mobile app that is growing and adding features and opportunities constantly.  You can find creators of all sorts to connect with there and subscribe to their page for anywhere from one dollar to $15 per month (and sometimes more for really big rewards) just for various levels of fun basic content.  Artists, musicians, comedians, business gurus, podcasters, vloggers – you name it.  And the creators who rely on this platform to make a living at what they do are generally really thankful for their communities who subscribe for their content.

As an end user you can go on the desktop version and even better download the mobile app.  The creators you subscribe to can upload video, audio, photos, livestreams, links, polls, stories, or just text  right to the app.  So you can listen, watch, comment, and interact with other fans & followers all from your smartphone.  You can access all of these things on demand as you like – a great way to support the people you enjoy on the go.  You’ll love it. 

Keep in mind that the best creators on Patreon typically have YouTube channels, blogs, Instagram and Snapchat, and a whole variety of profiles online where they’re sharing free content, but the ones who do it right are giving extra rewards and exclusive content to their patrons because the patrons are paying for it – they definitely appreciate your support.

As for OUR Patreon page, we’ve already posted a TON of stuff there…and we’re adding more.

We aren’t messing around.  We are off to a solid start with a handful of subscribers and we are working really hard to create content exclusively for Patreon.  Heck, part of the impetus for starting Patreon was the fact that people were asking us on our Periscope 📷Doug&Ally📷Morning Show!🎙☕ to do a podcast.  While we thought that would be fun we figured at some point it has to be sustainable for us to keep adding content that isn’t exactly our core business of photography.  Yes our content highlights our brand and is great for promotion but certain content in and of itself has value if we do it right and there are only so many hours in the day – as I said it has to be sustainable.  We felt a podcast along with some other things would fit the bill… so The📷Doug&Ally📷Morning Show!🎙☕………Podcast!  was born…

Patreon

We are having a blast with the podcast, and a shout out goes to the amazing Olivia Thai who supplied the little impromptu beatbox intro that you hear at the beginning of each one which we literally pulled from when she called into our morning show one day!

Meanwhile, we have SO much else to offer, and so we’ve been pouring ourselves into creating content for Patreon much like the courses we have taught here at our studio such as Doug’s teachings in his “2 Hour Social Media Class” and Ally’s “Photography 101” class.  People who follow us outside of the Metro Detroit area had been asking for a way to learn from us or get online courses and now Patreon gives us a way to do that with in-depth tutorials that we upload there.  The feedback on these has been solid (more on that in a bit) and we’ll even take requests on topics that our Patrons want covered specifically.  We do some of these with recordings of our computer screens while we’re walking you through how to create social media content or how to edit a photo in Photoshop.  These are great because you can access them on demand, at your own pace and you can watch them repeatedly.

We’ve added a few other exclusive series there too such as “Entrepreneur Life” where we talk about the highs and lows, thrills and challenges of having your own business – things that we’ve learned and sometimes the hard way…  We even include the occasional blooper!  As of this first writing we are at over 40 pieces of content total, available at the various levels.

You may find if you browse around Patreon overall that there are some who use their page simply as a donation mechanism – a way for their followers to contribute money to support what they are already doing elsewhere.  Not calling anyone out specifically or saying that’s bad per se…  But that’s not our strategy.  If you’re paying for our Patreon, you’re getting your money’s worth ON Patreon.  We’ll even send you a 📷Doug&Ally📷Morning Show!🎙☕ bookmark at the $5 level and up!

Our Patrons Are Happy – they are validating what we are doing there – so take their word for it!

We are getting great feedback so far and there are subscription levels for everybody – from just $2 per month to be included in our private Periscope group – this is a great thing by the way.  Sometimes we just go on Periscope live in a private broadcast just for our Patrons to get feedback, chat or we’ll even livestream there under our own personal profiles @dougcohen10 or @AllyCohen_1 if we feel like waxing poetic on our own passions like music, history, football, parenting – whatever, and the patrons are really enjoying this.  We are getting great feedback so far at all of the various reward levels.  Take a look at some of the comments from the page…

Podcast

Patreon

Tutorial on Twitter Lists

Patreon

Tutorial on Canva

Patreon

Random Blooper

Patreon

Participation and Community is at the heart of what we do – Patreon is a shining example

We’ve always said we are all the Frameable Faces – sure it’s Doug & Ally – we own the business.  But we’re part of the community just like everyone else, and it’s our peeps that make our studio and it will be our peeps that make the Patreon page too.  Our friend Gareth from the UK is “Pliny The Round” and he’s already been posting in the “Community” tab on the Patreon which is awesome.  The people do and will continue to shape the community there.  We’ve had Patrons make suggestions for things to include in the Podcast and we frequently reach out for feedback.  At this point we are toying with adding Discord to our page (an app much like Slack that gamers have traditionally used for group chat and voice to text around certain topics) which can be integrated with Patreon.  Just another way to bring the community closer together – so we’ll see how Discord plays out.  Regardless, with Patreon since people are subscribing everyone has a vested interest in making it great!

When we share tips we don’t hold back – we pour out our knowledge…

We don’t really horde our secrets.  We subscribe to the idea that sharing helps the community, it helps the industry whether that be social media or photography, and we never have just one main magic sauce really anyway.  Once we’ve shared the sauce we’ve already concocted the next one.  We’re always concocting a new sauce and improving the current sauce, and just because someone took our sauce and tried to make it doesn’t mean they’ll make it exactly how we made it.  If by chance they made it better than us?  Well than that will just give us something to shoot for won’t it?

If you like the way we do things and you think you could learn from us, you will at our Patreon page.  We promise.  Thanks for reading and we hope to you see you there!  We won’t let you down!

 
BECOME A PATRON!  Subscribe at our Patreon page for tips, tutorials, podcasts and even individual coaching on your photography or social media!  
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

 

 

Facebook Creator, SEO & more – Doug’s Social Stream Of Consciousness

 

Facebook Creator

A huge development just happened in the world of Facebook.  The launch of Facebook Creator is a pretty big deal for Livestreamers on the platform and we were able to download the app, set it up and go live with a bevy of new features yesterday in no time!  Here is the actual broadcast:

Thoughts & Tips on Facebook Creator

Let me take a second here to point out a couple of things and dissect our approach just on this first test of the new features in a screenshot graphic and then we’ll discuss further:

Facebook CreatorYou can see in the broadcast we were able to bring Jenny Q right onto the screen (with a simple click of her comment)!  There’s even a little video icon within the comments of your viewers while you’re live that lets you know who is available to join. 

Now I’m not going to go into a bunch of detail about how to set this up on Facebook – instead I’m going to direct you to the link that walked me through it on Social Media Examiner written by Peg Fitzpatrick.  As a side note it was Ai Addyson-Zhang‘s tweet of the article that led me to it by a simple #FacebookCreator hashtag search.

Meanwhile here’s a tip – you don’t have to purchase Canva For Work (as mentioned in the article) in order to get a transparent overlay on your screen.  You can create a basic graphic in the free version of Canva and then select for it to be transparent right in the Creator app and it will convert it for you.  Canva For Work might give you a little more control over this but you can get around it if you’re starting out. 

Having the graphics on your screen is nice – similar to what I used to do with OBS for Periscope broadcasts for certain shows.  Now granted they aren’t as flexible – you can’t change them up on the fly during a broadcast, but they are cool to have there as I outlined in the graphic above.  The option to add prerecorded bumpers (prerecorded video intros like your favorite TV shows for example) at the beginning and end of the live broadcast is really nice too.  We haven’t done this yet but you can bet I’m looking for ways to use all of these tools to create new content for us on Facebook as well as for my social media clients.  For those of you who tune in to our Periscope broadcasts don’t worry, there are NO plans to move the Doug & Ally Morning Show to Facebook!  If you’re curious here is an article I wrote earlier this year that compares and contrasts the two platforms which is still pretty on point – there have been a few changes since then obviously, but the basics remain the same.

A Couple of SEO thoughts…

I’m no expert when it comes to SEO but I have a basic working understanding of it.  By using plugins like Yoast here for WordPress I’ve been able to properly place my content on the Internet so that it ranks well in search results on Google in our home base of West Bloomfield for example.  Now, some might say one of the flaws in our SEO strategy is that we cast too wide a net which doesn’t allow us to dominate a niche and the people we snag aren’t as targeted as they could be.  We are a high end / low volume photography studio.  It’s just me and Ally and we put a ton of effort, heart and soul into every client and every portrait session.  We bring a ton of experience and expertise to the table.  We aren’t for everybody – we aren’t a cheap studio, don’t want to be, and yet we rank for plenty of general searches such as “West Bloomfield Photographer” which doesn’t discriminate between different tastes or budgets.

Facebook Creator

So what’s the answer?  As I said I’m not an expert and I’m not ready to cast a smaller more targeted net on the web for “higher end” clients only – I’m not even sure there’s a way to do that – to only get ranked for clients who want the “best experience”…  I think I’m good with how we present and differentiate ourselves online with social media and our owned online assets.  I say for SEO just make sure you’re found first and foremost as a general rule and then make sure people can tell that you are a quality outfit when they find you.  In the meantime though here’s my advice if your net is a little on the wide side:

I had someone call asking about pricing for a portrait session the other day.  I talked him briefly through the process and the pricing and we were way out of the budget he was looking for – he wanted something really simple.  Instead of turning my nose up at him I helped him through his options and what the differences are, and ultimately referred him to Focal Point in Farmington.  They are a higher volume studio than us with a large staff and more basic options available.  It won’t be the same experience as working with us but this guy wasn’t looking for the “best” – he was just looking for something “good” and economical.  Nothing wrong with that.  Focal Point been good to work with for us with seniors for class composites, they are a local family owned studio, and I still helped this gentleman – I’m comfortable sending him there because they are a professional outfit.  The ease of entry has allowed too many non-professionals into this industry so I want to support actual studios.  You uplift your profession, you play nicely in the sandbox and if you are in the business of helping people then do it wherever you can whether someone becomes your client or not.  It’s good karma.

What are your thoughts on these topics?  Are you using Facebook Creator yet?  Have a good SEO take?  Let me know!

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Frameable Faces Photography
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Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
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Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
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Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
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Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!

 

Is Organic Reach Dead On Facebook? Is This A Legit Question?

Organic Reach

Is organic reach dead on Facebook?  Do you have to spend advertising dollars to reach anyone on Facebook now?  I hear people say this more and more….  As I’ve written here before I participate weekly in a live Twitter chat and broadcast on Periscope called #LetsLivestream.  It’s always a good discussion with many great guests and nice production value hosted by Jonathan Tripp, and once in a while a topic or a take in the conversation gets me thinking about a blog post.  This week the topic was promotion of your live streams – best practices for promoting, various tools etc.  Question 4 is the one that got me going:

Organic Reach

Here was my answer:

Organic Reach

A bit of a contrarian view perhaps (Wait – MOI?  A contrarian view?), and even though I referenced Periscope in my tweet (keep in mind the livestream takes place ON Periscope), I continued on to include Facebook Live in my point in the chat.  At that point my esteemed friend Jenn Nelson of @JennsLIVE & @WineAntics who helps produce the show chimed in with the comment “ORGANIC REACH IS DEAD ON FACEBOOK!!!”  And then this happened:

Organic ReachOrganic ReachOrganic ReachOrganic Reach

This was going nowhere.  We agreed to continue the discussion offline after the show which we did.

So Is Organic Reach Indeed Dead On Facebook?

I sent her these screen shots of recent analytics for our Facebook page with the organic reach numbers – these represent all the posts we made on the Frameable Faces page from 10/3/17 to 11/14/17:

Organic Reach

Note that as of this writing we have a TOTAL of 1792 followers of our page.  You too can be a follower!  Give us a “Like”!!!  Okay sorry that was very shameless and spammy.  I digress.  But the point is you’ll note in the numbers above that virtually ALL of our reach has been non-paid.  There is one sliver of darker orange that represents a bit of boosted / paid reach when we spent a couple dollars to get one post going a little.  In this snapshot of time the reach on our posts range anywhere from 188 at the lowest to 2.6k at the highest and roughly half of these were Livestreams.  The livestreams didn’t have the peaks and valleys that the other posts did, generally ranging between a more consistent 500-1000.  Meanwhile, YES – we still get plenty of organic reach and a handful of posts still go beyond the followers of our page without paying on Facebook!

Is This Even A Legit Question?

Now here is where the debate gets interesting.  Jenn’s point which is shared by many is that Facebook doesn’t just automatically dole out free reach for your business page anymore.  And she’s right to a point.  Little by little Facebook has pulled back on how much they’ll push your content out to your followers, and many feel like it’s become closer and closer to a full on pay-to-play model to get any reach.  Each time the announcement / rumor comes out that they’ve tweaked the algorithm again my response is the very same every time:  Crappy content continues to get less organic reach on #Facebook. Good content still gets plenty. frameablefaces.com/2017-11-16-organic-reach-dead-facebook/ Share on X

So my question is what IS organic reach?  See the following conversation between Jenn and me:

Organic ReachOrganic Reach

How great is Jenn?  Give her a like / follow!  But here’s the question (to her point), a typical post of hers might only reach 40 people on Facebook on its own.  That’s what Facebook is just handing her out of the gate.  I would still argue that that is still not purely an automatic just because she posted – those 40 people on some level have to be 1) followers that have 2) likely shown some affinity towards her page through their Facebook behavior.  Now once someone shares it it may bump right up to 200 and so on.  Isn’t that STILL “organic”?  In other words, good content that compels people to share will still gain reach organically.  If that’s not still considered organic then what’s the point of even talking about “organic reach”?  As I said to Jenn what’s the point of even creating content in the first place if no one is going to share it?  If a post falls in the Facebook Forest and no one sees it did it really happen?  Shares, likes, comments – engagement – is part of the deal with organic.  That’s the reason we do this in the first place.

Which brings us back to the same old tried and true principle of Facebook and ALL social media in general.  Make sure you are entertaining, teaching, engaging – providing value with good content and you will still get that organic reach!!!!  I created this meme a while back as kind of my favorite quote for small businesses – kind of my little calling card….  follow this and yes – there is still organic reach to be had everywhere on social media.  Even on Facebook.

Organic Reach

**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography
**********************************************
Frameable Faces Photography is a small biz retail mom & pop shop of Doug&Ally Cohen located in the Orchard Mall in West Bloomfield, Michigan, United States Of America!
************************************************
Ally & Doug can be reached at the studio at tel:248-790-7317 or emailed at mailto:info@frameablefaces.com
************************************************
***************************************­*******
Being “Frameable” is an attitude, a community, a way of life – a life you would want to celebrate and display on your walls for all to see!  Tell us… ARE YOU FRAMEABLE?
**********************************************
Join the Frameable Faces Community – sign up for our email newsletter for the best of the week in the Frameable Faces World!  Click here!