Photo Credit: bb_matt

Technology and the internet are rapidly changing just about every industry and photography is no exception.  Here’s what I think you need to do to succeed in 2009:

• Successful photographers will embrace social media to connect and tell their story.  They’ll use blogs, social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, etc, they’ll also use sharing sites like Flickr, and they’ll network using Twitter.  If you don’t have a plan to incorporate social media into your business, watch out.
• Successful photographers will also focus just as much time and energy telling their story and the stories of their works as they do on actually creating their work.  The story behind the photographer and his/her work is becoming increasingly important to buyers.
• Cheaper and better technology will continue to enable amateur photographers with no training to compete with the big dogs.  If you’ve comfortably had work as a trained professional photographer, don’t remain comfortable.  Push yourself to learn more and get better each day so that your work stands out against the global competition.
• Many photographers will learn this year and openly sharing their work on the web is much better for them than trying to prevent every visitor to their site from snagging their images.

Good luck this year and remember that marketing your work is just as important as creating your work.