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One of the most engaging and effective ways to display and promote creative work is by using video and/or combinations of stills and video, timed with transitions and music. Photographers have been doing this for a long time, but with the burst of new cameras touting high-quality video capture, the proliferation of editing tools, and a growing field of Web sites that offer storage and display for video, how does a pro know where to go? For the longest time YouTube was the big cheese when it came to video sharing on the Internet. But back in 2004 a team of creatives and filmmakers decided to make a better mouse trap, one that not only offered superior handling of video, but a cleaner frame for display and tools craved by professional—not amateur—users. What they created is Vimeo (www.vimeo.com). Today, Vimeo is a community of people who enjoy sharing, collaborating and watching videos made by individuals around the globe. Devotees single out the platform for its excellent forums, groups and communication tools that foster community. In 2007, the company was the first to push forward high-definition (HD) video sharing functionality—just in time to serve the needs of photographers experimenting with the new video-enabled DSLRs. Vimeo offers two levels of membership: a free Basic option and a $59.99 per year Plus Option. Basic allows for uploading high quality videos (up to 500MB per week), basic video player display and access to community areas, while the Plus option boasts features such as HD-quality display and handling, up to 5GB per week upload, unlimited access to community areas, no advertising, advanced privacy functions and SEO tools. “The platform is a foundation for photographers and creatives to not only present their work in a professional manner, but to connect and share,” says Blake Whitman, Director of Community at Vimeo. “More and more photographers are creating their own Group or Channel. The users in these forums bring a huge source of knowledge and are very willing to share. In fact, one of the most trafficked subjects is conversation about new DSLRs and how to really produce quality video.” Vimeo remains on top of new technology additions. “We’ve been boosting social media integration, improving SEO [search engine optimization] tools, and the newest version for Plus users features HTML5 with universal embedding to easily stream and display on the latest mobile devices and iPad,” Whitman says.
In Practice With an increasing number of photographers looking to add video to their workflow, Rangefinder spoke with three studios about their approach: Dustin Meyer Photography has been in business for eight years and focuses on family and high school portraiture, and wedding photography. This is a small, close-knit team comprised of Meyer, his wife Sophia and an assistant. The studio is located in Northwest Austin, TX, on 25 acres near a nature preserve that often doubles as scenic backdrop with its large pecan and oak trees, creeks, a pond and the couple’s log-cabin-style home. He founded his studio in 2002. View the studio’s Vimeo portal and Web site: www.vimeo.com/9867090; www.dustinmeyer.com.
Scott Allan of Allan Images shares that the birth of his studio business came at about the same time as the birth of his first son. “I bought a 35mm camera and was immediately hooked. Within a few months of showing off pictures of our son, my wife, Debbi, and I were shooting friends’ kids; within a year it was weddings. By the end of the next year we were at it full time with two studio locations.” The studio started in 1975 and also serviced school contracts. After 10 years in operation this husband and wife team sold and focused on raising their children. Three years ago they opened a new studio offering purely portrait and wedding work, and serving the Central California market. View the studio’s Vimeo portal and Web site: www.vimeo.com/allanimages; www.allanimages.com.
Matt and Shayna Hobbs are a husband and wife team and owners of Taproot Photography, based in Nashville, TN. The studio provides wedding and portraiture to clients in the immediate area, but it’s not unusual for them to be on the road more than 100 days out of the year to service remote clients. Taproot is just two years old and lead by two self-taught photographers. “My camera was my teacher,” shares Hobbs, who offers that not having that classical training has actually given them an edge when it comes to producing what clients love. Taproot counts three on staff: Matt and Shayna, plus one assistant. View the studio’s Vimeo portal and Web site: www.vimeo. com/4772424; www.taprootphotography.com
Why did you start adding video?
Dustin Meyer Photography: About three years ago Meyer started incorporating snippets of motion, action and dialogue into his presentation output, which permitted the viewer to get a glimpse of what working with him was like. More a multimedia presentation than video reel, those initial production pieces yielded more robust clips that today are key products in Meyer’s workflow. Aside from attracting more potential clients overall, Meyer feels the videos help attract better qualified inquiries, reasoning that anyone who was contacting the studio had likely seen the video and felt that his personality was a fit for their needs. A second plus is SEO benefits. “Instead of limiting posts solely to my Web site, we strategically send to Vimeo, YouTube and Facebook,” Meyer says. Taproot Photography: “About a year and a half ago we started incorporating slideshows into our product line,” Hobbs says. “We make these slideshows using Animoto.com to not only market our studio, but as a product for our customers. We do not have pure play video production yet, but plans are in the works!” Allan Images: In 2007, Allan’s studio started posting multime-
dia slideshows into private client galleries hosted on their Web site. “Back then, the client would email us an mp3 of their favorite song and we’d set their wedding or portrait session to that music. Guests liked this because the sound helped frame the entire wedding or portrait session in just a few minutes. It heightened the mood and brought novelty. What resulted was so much easier to view and understand than advancing through hundreds of images,” he says. Allan hosted these presentations elsewhere and included a link to the album when notifying the client. “About a year ago we started tapping the Vimeo platform to host the majority of our client shows, initially keeping albums private. Then we began noticing an increase in traffic—both for our Web site and level of incoming calls,” he says. The studio has more than 40 presentations on Vimeo, and some track more than 300 views. According to Allan, his clients say they “hire the studio to photograph their wedding—but then see [their] photo package set to music and decide they do not need to hire a videographer.” Now that the videos are public the studio is looking for ways to allow the customers to select royalty-free music for their online videos.
How did you find Vimeo? Dustin Meyer Photography: Meyer came across Vimeo in 2008 after noticing that Gary Fong had created a post and then linked it back to his Facebook page. Meyer thought the novelty was interesting and perhaps this platform would be one more tool to market his own business. He posted his first video one year ago. Today, he’s got nearly 40 on his portal. Allan Images: A member of the Digital Wedding Forum, a discussion site for professional wedding photographers, tipped off Allan. He recalls the Vimeo platform being recommended as a great new tool for artistically displaying his work. He uploaded his first video selection one year ago. Taproot Photography: “Vimeo has been with us from the start. We researched many video hosting sites and determined Vimeo was optimal for our needs. Almost no one in our
photographs and later adds motion and sound using Photodex ProShow Producer. Then, with a click, the files are converted and the output is sent automatically to Vimeo. Dustin Meyer Photography: Meyer relies on Vimeo as his primary video delivery platform. The power of educating customers and visually introducing himself to parents of potential senior portrait clients and bridal clients was a prime motivator, but his greatest win has come as a result of having clients talk and blog about his work. “Customers were telling their friends that my senior portrait videos made them look and feel like a celebrity. They loved sharing the presentation with friends and family.” A few months ago he began producing and uploading brief tutorial videos. As opposed to building reputation within target client pools, these tutorials are directed at other photographers and businesses. “Topics covered include how to better utilize social media for promotion and communication, product reviews and pointers for iPhone apps. I do this to help others in the industry, but it’s also contributing to SEO.”
Why do you like using the Vimeo platform?
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immediate geographical market was using video in their client product lineup, let alone marketing. This really made us stand out, using the platform as another visual interest item for our clients.”
What do you use Vimeo for?
Taproot Photography: “We upload our motion-enabled slideshows to Vimeo so that clients can have a unique experience when viewing and sharing images. We love that Vimeo is so customizable; the company has thought of everything—especially how they have made the platform seamlessly integrate with Facebook. At the moment, Facebook is our number one method for nurturing warm client leads, so this integration is key.” Allan Images: Simply put, Allan says, “Any and every appropriate video will end up online using the Vimeo platform!” Clients are calling him soon after a shoot to ask when they can see and share their videos. But, like Taproot, Allan’s studio does not yet shoot and edit pure video footage. Instead, the company creates artistic
Taproot Photography: “It’s user friendly. It’s 100 percent customizable and it’s very affordable—the Basic option is free. Even if you upgrade to Plus, it’s still very affordable,” Hobbs says. Allan Images: Allan singles out the HD and ease of embedding as two key things he likes about Vimeo. But he’s very enthusiastic that the platform safeguards privacy and limits piracy. He loves the viewing frame consistency that comes with the Vimeo platform—embedded videos piped out to other sites preserve branding and coloration, plus look and feel. Dustin Meyer Photography: “I prefer Vimeo because of its ease of use, gorgeous overall design and the HD display. I can display HD on the Vimeo site, and I can embed HD anywhere I want. I like that the embedding settings allow me to customize how videos will appear when posted elsewhere—which gives seamless integration.” He also likes the sense of community, ability to develop contacts, and access to platform channels. Integration with Facebook, Twitter and other Web sites are great too, but a favorite feature is the desktop uploader. “I like the ability to tag, enter descriptions and edit titles. And I can schedule multiple videos for upload— triggering them for immediate or preset time.”
What kind of tracking can you / do you do with Vimeo?
Taproot Photography and Allan Images: Taproot and Scott both use the built-in analytics combined with Google Analytics to
How can Vimeo be used for marketing?
Taproot Photography: Taproot uploads get a two-step marketing treatment. “The first thing we do is embed into a custom Web page hosted on our server. We title that page with the client’s last name in the URL, then alert them of its presence. The client can PHOTO COPYRIGHT © taproot PHOTOGRAPHY
forward the link to family and friends.” The second punch comes with posts to Facebook. The duo reports an average of eight to 10 new friend requests for every video added there. “We usually wind up getting at least one booked photo shoot for every video posted.” Dustin Meyer Photography: Meyer is all about social media, so his main methods of marketing are Facebook, blogging and SEO. “A fast and easy connect between a Facebook profile and Vimeo lets me instantly display my latest work in both places. Plus, by adding Vimeo links to my Fan Pages they can also see what I’ve posted. For my blog, Vimeo allows me to embed HD shows, customize font color and display information.” Allan Images: “By combining music, voice-overs and motion, you add a whole new dimension too and create an experience,” Allan says. “With Vimeo I can upload, then embed anywhere with just a couple of clicks. It’s fast and easy marketing with very high ROI.”
How has marketing your work changed in the last five to 10 years with the Internet?
Dustin Meyer Photography: “All of our studio marketing is focused on the Internet and has been since day one,” Meyer shares. “I’ve systematically spun any free time into advertising time; I dedicate those extra hours to coming up with, and producing, social media mini campaigns. By doing this, the studio has cut ad dollars that would have originally gone to print advertising, plus the viral aspect has moved our results up by 100 fold.”
Allan Images: Among these Vimeo photographers, Allan’s studio career clocks the most significant tactical shift in how to do business and market today. Having been absent from photography as a career for several years, the rules are all different. Gone are the days of Yellow Pages ads, radio and newspaper promotion. He says it’s all Internet-based now. “We maintain six different sites and spend several hours a week keeping them updated,” adds Allan. “One of the nicest results comes when we’re contacted because a groom found us while surfing the Web. We’ve had brides call us for consultations because their fiancé in Iraq or Afghanistan saw us on the Internet. That’s pretty awesome.” Taproot Photography: Since Taproot was founded in 2008, the company is now firmly rooted in all things Internet. Hobbs shares, “I’m hugely thankful I didn’t have to experience starting and managing a photography studio [in the] pre-Internet days! Ninety-nine percent of our business comes from people who have seen us online.” However, he admits having experimented in promotions, a paid television ad, which, he says, was expensive and showed no results. “Without the power of the Internet our business would not exist.”
If you become a “power user” for Vimeo, in what ways do you see your studio boosting its usage?
Taproot Photography: Going forward, Taproot plans to eventually integrate pure play video in a big way and sees Vimeo as the platform to use exclusively. Dustin Meyer Photography: Vimeo meets all of the studio’s needs: display of portfolio and promotional videos, plus tutorials. Probably the most experienced of Vimeo users, Meyer is in the process of creating several channels to help segment and deliver
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let them track slideshow views and where visitors are located. Dustin Meyer Photography: Meyer tracks everything he can. “I like that Vimeo allows me to follow very specific items such as where a video was viewed, the number of embedded players on which my work is shown, number of views—the drill down capabilities are great. The organization of data is easy to read and find.” He’s often checking his account to see what comments have been made, see ratings and favorite selections.
targeted content to various target markets he’s working with. “As Vimeo develops new features, I plan on utilizing each to generate more awareness and build our own business.” Allan Images: “Our intention is to add fusion to our offerings over the next year, bringing in live action video to the stills for an even broader experience.” Martha Blanchfield is creator of the Renegade Photo Shoots (www.renegade-pr. com) and a freelance marketing and public relations consultant.