I’ve been reading a lot about new and better approaches to Web design at various sites, specifically as it relates to photographers. Photoshelter, for example, has posted some excellent advice about topics like SEO and the importance of giving each of your site’s pages an individual title. Flash, and why it might actually be doing your website damage, is one of the things that keeps popping up (pun intended) in these articles.
Today, while I was browsing Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s arcade-like new site (which is still in beta), I saw this link to a post titled “Flash is out. Social is in.” The writer of the post, Cindy Harris of the Rockford, Illinois–based ad agency KMK Media Group, says, “It’s not so much that Flash is bad, but rather a Flash intro on your site is too long and too self-important. People are realizing, in the online world at least, what they choose to read and spend time with is their choice, not yours.”
Thinking in terms of social media is the way to go, says Harris—but she doesn’t mean setting up a Facebook page or using Twitter. She means (as far as I can tell, at least) actually thinking of your company as if it were a person who uses YouTube, Facebook, etc. So you’d post your work on YouTube, she says, and then “consume” it on your website, much as someone would post a link at their site to a hilarious video of a “talking” dog or some such.
Harris also gives an example of an ad agency, BooneOakley in North Carolina, that has posted its corporate site at YouTube.
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No doubt it took a fair investment of time and resources to conceive that YouTube presentation and to write and record the voiceover. The agency has essentially done a campaign for itself, which must have cut into the time and resources it had to work on its clients’ projects. I’m not suggesting they’re not giving their clients 100 percent, only that getting that video up on YouTube was another big task on BooneOakley’s to-do list. I know that self-promotional efforts such as these are vital to remain competitive, but sometimes it feels like there’s little time left for actually working amid all the Facebooking, Twittering, Web updating, LinkedIn-ing, and blogging. Any photographer who has had to balance updating their book, creating and sending out promos, and updating their website with actually taking photos knows just what I mean, I suspect.
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One Comment
Exactly what I was thinking. I’m looking for a new website format (been writing my own site for WAY too long) and the flash front-page is a no-go for me, I want to provide info, not an intro.
On the other hand, too much info is just plain time consuming! I think we’ve gone too far with all the social networking, I’m getting burnt out!
Photographer’s should have one website, as do most of the photographers that work for SM, not a twit-pic page, and iPhone gallery, a flickr, etc. I think it de-values the imagery when you post too many shots, stating exactly how you shot them, where you shot them, and why. I like the photogs that leave a little mystery and provide the right amount of “in the know” info. There is an amazing list of talent streaming from this site, thanks for all the inspiration.
~Katie W.