Sam Sarkis, a professional photographer in Farmington, Michigan has made social media the cornerstone of his marketing effort, and the results have grown both his business and his bottom line.

Search for “sam sarkis” online and you will notice that he dominates the front pages of Google, Bing and Yahoo.

That’s no accident.

I spoke with Sam, and asked him about his general marketing plan, and how social media fits into it.

“I spend 2-3 hours a day marketing online alone,” Sam said. “First thing in the morning, then perhaps again later in the afternoon.”

I asked Sam how he finds that much time each day for online marketing.

“I don’t spend as much time in PhotoShop,” he explained.

I then asked Sam if that much time spent online hurts his business.

“I used to spend a thousand dollars on an ad. Now I spend nothing, and I get even more clients. And they are better clients too.”

So where does Sam spend his time? Without giving away his secrets, Here’s the list of links on the first page of Google alone!

• Facebook is used to showcase current clients daily.
• Twitter, where he also posts at least daily.
• LinkedIn where he has several recommendations.
• WeddingWire.com, where he also has several recommendations.
• The Knot. He is listed here along with his “Knot Best of Wedding” award.
• Southfield.Weddings.com by the Knot. He has a listing here.
• SamSarkisPhotography.com is a flash site that shows his work and links to his ImageQuix client gallery.
• SamSarkisPhotography.com/blog is occasionally used to post both portraits and images of his print advertising.
• YouTube. An older link from 2008, but it is still ranked high on Google.
• Yellow Pages. Yes, he’s even listed here.

One of the things I noticed is that many of the links above are cross-linked. For example, from nearly every page you can get to his website, his Facebook account, or his Twitter account.

Like many other successful photographers, Sam has discovered that if you aren’t shooting or selling, you should spend your remaining time marketing.

Tags: e-mail marketing, social media

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 19th, 2012 at 12:47 am and is filed under marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.