Cheap if not free advertsising?

private

I am new to the business (launched Oct 15th) and I was wondering what are the cheapest ways to get my name out there? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

catspaw

Word of mouth - let friends and other folks know you are doing this professionally. Be known as the person-with-the-camera (take it with you where ever you go). If you get this idea in their head, as job opportunities come up, they'll think of *you* first.

Craigslist or your local online classifieds

*business cards* - get them, leave them places, use them.

Art Scott

find and use public bulletin boards......some on here have used google ads with good success..........SEO the crap out of your site.......meaning manually gop list it on every browser and search engine there is.....tag (meta tag) all your photos and your site get links to and from opthers sites......google seo and follow the steps with your site........you can buy seo software or hire seo people but that ain't cheap.....doing it yourself ain't cheap either but it is YOUR time so do it after hours instead of watching tv or going out clubbin'......................

Cygnus Studios

Try submitting some pics to the local paper. While it doesn't pay all that well, it will get your name out in the community.
The Chamber of commerce is a good source. If you can schedule some volunteer time with some of the big charities, they will spread the word quickly.
Get some of your best pics framed and get them hung in local restaurants.
It is pretty easy to get local advertising freely.

Keep in mind one of the best parts of volunteering with big groups is that you can almost always get some free press in the local papers also.

dogwood

Start a blog (they're free) and use that as part of your SEO. I hear from people all the time who saw something on my blog. Even picked up a decent test job for an upstart modeling agency recently-- only to find out the agency director had been reading my blog for months! She wanted to see consistency and make sure I wasn't just some fly-by-night photographer before hiring me.

private

Thanks so much for all of the great tips. I have been leaving my business cards everywhere - no one has bitten yet. The only thing that has worked for me so far is going to Moms club meetings and doing the Picture people kind of advertising - I'll give you a free 8x10...

I have no idea how to submit pics to the local newspaper, I guess my first step would be to call - anyone know which dept I should ask for? And I do need to start a blog. Anyone know the best place to start one...?

chuckinsocal

I ran across this site the other day. I e-mailed the guy my application and spoke with him at length by phone and he seems legit and on the up and up. I seriously doubt you could make a living off it but it could result in a job or two every once in a while that may lead to repeat business or referral business. That being said, I haven't decided to fork over my $75 yet.

I'm thinking that I could do the same thing by running ads in Craig's List or similar sites and linking to a page on my SmugMug site that says pretty much the same things he does on his site. We'll see.

dogwood

private wrote:

And I do need to start a blog. Anyone know the best place to start one...?

I like wordpress but others here prefer blogger/blogspot. They're both free so take your pick.

MaryBoo

Submitting pictures to the local paper is pretty easy, but you need to take picture that they actually want put in their paper. And in most cases it will need to the next day. You won't get paid, but you will get published.

Types of photos: news story, space filler, or local interest story. In my case (very small local paper) I took pictures of unusual landscapes for our area. A rainbow over the city welcome sign, a sunrise-foggy-bridge picture and a picture of Mt Rainier with a blue sky after months of nasty weather. They used these as front page space fillers on slow weeks. A few people even managed to track me down via the newspaper and bought prints!

Study your paper. You can usually find a contact email address for submiting interesting stories or ideas.

Cygnus Studios

MaryBoo is right. The editor needs pics everyday. Most will be "needed", like the major car crash, the weather, that sort of thing.
They will also use quite a bit of stock stuff for those days where nothing is happening.
Some medium size papers will pay a few dollars for the rights to the photo. While this is nice, the credit line is worth far more. If at all possible, try to get your website listed versus your name.
I know the name is nice, but most people are far too lazy to look you up. If they see blahblahblah @ blah dot com, they will hit the site.

private

Awsesome. I am going to buy our three papers today and do some studying...:) Hopefully, find something to subit between Christmas and new years - its usually pretty slow then...:)