Facebook Usage Tracked and Quantified

This is interesting. I found this research on www.istrategylabs.com while doing a search on Facebook user statistics. They have been tracking the usage and growth of Facebook since 2007 using Facebook's own data. Where it applies to school photography is the growth rates among our core audience -- the 25-34 & 35-54 age groups. In 2010, these groups grew 127% and 328%, respectively and now represent over 50% of Facebook's total user base.

Check it out.

2007 - Ages 25-54 represent 17% of 20 million users.
2008 - Ages 25-54 represent 28% of 26 million users.
2009 - Ages 25-54 represent 42% of 42 million users.
2010 - Ages 25-54 represent 55% of 103 million users.

I don't know if anyone in our industry has exactly figured out how to create value for school picture consumers through Facebook or if it can even be done. But I'll bet the one who gets it right will win big.

What do you think? What strategies are you trying in your business?

JA

Fast Ways to Target the Right Schools

When you're selling school pictures, it's easy to know what schools to target in your hometown. You already know which schools are good educationally, have great athletic programs, active PTO's, high state test scores, and so on.

That isn't so easy when taking your show on the road and selling in an area where you are not as familiar. Trying to filter the hundreds (or thousands) of schools down to the ones that make the most sense for your business can be a very daunting and expensive prospect.

Fortunately, there are some free web tools that can make the job a lot easier. These web sites all contain useful demographic data that will help school photographers find the right schools for their business.

Public School Review
Private School Review
Great Schools
National Center for Education Statistics

Happy hunting!

More Moms Lash Out at Speculation School Photography

In case you were wondering, speculation school photography programs are not always viewed positively by parents. And those who are annoyed aren't afraid to make their opinions known. If you photograph using specualtion programs, you should read this article and the comments it sparked. If you don't, there's plenty of ammo here for you to use against your competition.

Can't We Be Better Than This?

Caught this article on a Google Alert. It mentions school pictures in the context of the author's family and how photography was (or wasn't) part of their life. Another instance where we're shown how much room for improvement we have as an industry. Making it better doesn't require a PMA-commissioned task force, either. We just have to hire nice people, train them well, give them some time to take a good picture, and then deliver a solid value to our customers. Are we doing that?

Link to article, excerpted below.
Courtesy of the Columbia Daily Tribune, by Doug Pugh.

The only exceptions were the school pictures I was required to sit for each year from kindergarten through ninth grade. One day each year, we were all forced to stand in line and then sit in front of a pale brown screen as an old man blurted out annoying jokes before blinding us with a violent flash of light. Our parents were then encouraged to purchase, at varying prices, assorted packages of the resulting photograph, which were handed out to the class amid great clamor and eagerness several weeks later. While all of the other kids ripped into gigantic envelopes filled with hundreds of pictures of every shape and size imaginable, I was always left holding a miserable strip of paper containing three tiny photos roughly the size of sugar packets.

In hindsight, this was one of the few instances of my mother’s vehement frugality being entirely well-founded. For my birthday last year, she presented me with a framed collage of every single one of my old school pictures, which had somehow miraculously survived her voracious desire to throw things away over the years. When I was in elementary school, I was required to dress myself and comb my own hair every morning. Also, it appears I was not allowed to eat or sleep for months on end. The result was that none of my school pictures is identifiable in any way from any of the others, but instead a sad series of identical poses: my head tilted nearly sideways, a glum frown traversing my gaunt face, one eye open and one eye shut, tufts of hair and cowlicks shooting out in every direction.