I spent the past week in NYC to attend the "Business of Microstock" Panel (check my previous post) and then PDN's Photo Plus Expo. It's been very interesting meeting photographers, industry players such as Fotolia and observers like Ellen Boughn. I also got the opportunity to speak on Jack Hollingworth's "Photography Makeover" panel, which answered photographers' questions about social media.

Walking the floor for two days, I noticed a few obvious things (for the complete album go here):

• There are many companies providing printing services: MPix, Lulu.com, Blurb were the most notable. The most memorable element was the promotion of pocket sized albums (or wallet sized). Lulu's for example can have 20 pages and costs $4. They were promoting it at Fotolia's booth.
• Most booths were dedicated to supporting products, though most camera manufacturers were there (Canon, Nikon, Leica, Olympus, Sony): Accessories, Software such as Topaz Labs photoshop plugins, Training DVDs and online galleries (SmugMug, Zenfolio - both available as iSyndica channels). Animoto, a company I like was also there. Their service enables the automatic creation of digital slideshows from stills and footage. It's a bit pricey for professional use though.
• The existence of the above companies isn't new but what is is the increased integration behind them. Lulu is integrated with Fotolia, Zenfolio with MPix and SmugMug with yet another provider. Similar to iSyndica's purpose, the desire is for an image to be easily utilized in varying ways without constant uploads.
• The last company I'll point out is Imense. A keywording tool that is bound to speed up the work of thousands of stock photographer. We like it very much at iSyndica.

Tony from Imense, with Jessica Korman, blogger from takethef.com

Taking a step away from the booths I visited to reflect on Jack's panel, I was surprised by photographers' desire to learn about social media. The panel was at 8:45AM, so it was a bit of a shock to me when I saw a room full of eager attendants. There might have been 60 people in there all taking notes on Jack's many words of wisdom, as he slowly iterated over Twitter (his favorite), Facebook, Flickr, Blogs etc. People in the audience ranged from "newbies" to well versed (@tdavidson and @sherriinnis). To give an idea of the concerns expressed I'm going to list some common questions asked:

• How do I setup a Facebook Fan page
• How much time do I need to spend doing "social media"
• How can social media help me
• Why would I interact and engage with other photographers

Those are not rocket science questions, but unless you've grown with a sixth sense for all things Tech, you might find the whole thing daunting. The biggest pitfall some may fall into, might be to take the "social" out of "social media". As Jack pointed out, @photojack is about Jack Hollingsworth. Ultimately, commercial benefits are a product of people interacting with Jack as a person and friend, not the direct intent. Finally, iSyndica is a great tool to be using as we provide free distribution of your portfolio to Flickr, Facebook, Twitter etc. with custom watermarking (soon) and resizing options.

To go back to Jack, his emphasis was on the following:

1. 1 social media a month. Start with Twitter (I advocate starting with Facebook) then try something new.
2. Define your goal. Define your strategy. Otherwise you'll get lost talking about everything and nothing
3. Talking with other photographers is a good thing, and not a taboo.

There were substantial supporting stories from the audience and other speakers. Zack Arias got help finding a location to shoot an assignment. Jeremy Cowart was able to find assistants for an out of town project. And a photographer whose name escapes me was able to get an assignment, a client knowing of her whereabouts through her Facebook Fan page.

Remember, you can find iSyndica on Twitter & Facebook for updates or to chat with us.