Visual Media Means Business

Guest blog by Ed Lallo, founding partner, The News Group Net:

Traditional public relations firms have never appreciated – or had much success with – using great photography. Based on the premise of billable hours, they are more entrenched in using a host of staff time to place as many press releases as possible. What escapes most agencies and corporate PR teams is the knowledge of how to successfully use photographers to enhance their businesses. Instead, photography comes as an afterthought, a one-time line item to expense.

Yet now that some PR agencies are finally realizing that companies have strategic communications plans that employ a wide variety of visual media, corporate photography has suddenly become a marketable tool: Corporate journalism, as media-guru David Henderson has deemed it, is the future of communications for the digital era.

Corporate journalism has spurred the growth of company online newsrooms, which constantly need to be fed timely updated stories and photos, as opposed to being simply dull repositories for boring press releases. Online newsrooms, Facebook, Twitter and other digital tools tell the company story to a wide variety of audiences: media, employees, shareholders, analysts and even the competition using brand journalism. Corporate management is much more willing to invest when the audience it reaches is greater and sustainable. Great photos drive traffic to these digital tools and are one of the main reasons for repeat traffic. This is all creating a market with great opportunities for the corporate photographer-especially when partnered with a knowledgeable, professional communications company.

On a side note, since the conception of websites that use quality pictures, the photography industry has struggled with how to be compensated. And much like the music and movie industries, our struggle still continues today. Specifically, online photos are a mere 900k in resolution, at most. The photos are available virtually forever on the Internet and can easily be downloaded to a computer, or used on other sites. Traditional print use of an Internet photo, however, is not a factor and there within lies the problem. Most assignments now being shot for the Internet still are being invoiced as if for traditional publication.

This means that photographers must now act as well: If they strategically place their talents with a company, they can increase their day rate to a “monthly rate” by relinquishing Web usage fees and offering set prices for their services over the course of the month. By highlighting the overall corporate savings, plus the ability of the company to more effectively build brand by adding effective visuals, the photographer can eventually grow the business from within and add a proof of concept for new business.

So what does all this mean to PR professionals? It means that by adding great photos as a visual communication tool, especially on the Web, an often un-heard voice-the shooter-can become part of the corporate strategic communications function. After all, corporate photography-when focused on the right ROI-has its rightful place today among both old and new media and technologies, and deserves a real seat at the table.

Ed Lallo is a founding partner in The News Group Net , corporate journalists delivering editorial solutions for clients in ways that matter to employees, customers, investors and the media. Ed’s personal blog can be found at http://www.lallophoto.com.

Filed Under: Featured • Guest Blogger

Tags: Ed Lallo • Featured