Has SS discontinued the contributor forum as it was? Now only 'Contributor Blog' in the dropdown menu and all the old forums have disappeared.

Just got this message as I tried to access SS Forum from my contributor page.......someone dun a boo-boo!

I'm an old stick-in-the-mud having a 'discussion/argument' with a friend of mine regarding the merits of my having a FB account (which I don't have)! His argument for an account is that everyone has one, you can't be in business without one and that must bring in new business. I earn my living primarily from commissioned photography for industrial clients in the food sector + a little pocket money from stock. I am dubious on a time-invested vs new client billing basis of the merits of the social media whilst my friend reckons that it must be good for business.

I'm no high-flyer, big deal photographer. Nor do I have an outstanding style/technique to my work......so it's not like I'm going to be noticed among the millions of other photographers with an account. My friend insists that with an account, the world will know that I exist and be able to find me. I argue that the world will not even notice and that I'll be just one of the billions of FB account holders, so why should I expend my time on maintaining an account when I could be more profitably spend it on other methods of acquisition.
My question is, do you directly get work from new clients from their looking at your Facebook account or is FB just a part of your more direct approach to acquiring new business via the more traditional methods (personal contact, phone, direct mail, word-of-mouth recommendation etc)?

I already have a site with a fairly complete selection of the work that I do. Do I need a Facebook account as well? TIA for any comments/advice.

For a number of years I've been lucky to work for a client that requires an A4 sized, full color product brochure twice every year. Until recently this brochure consisted primarily of product photo's ( made by us) with some graphics provided by the printer. Occasionally, we were also asked to provide some extra shots from stock archives and we have been small, occasional buyers of both iStock and FT images (by download).........helps cash in some of my FT credits too!

In July 2010, the client requested us to search stock agencies to find images specifically including people which were to be used as background shots to give the rather stuffy brochure a more modern appeal. The client told us that for the right shots he was prepared to pay up to �60/download..........no doubt brought up in the RM days! Unnecessary of course, I don't think we paid more than �15/shot and we never charged on top of what it cost us to buy. The new approach was successful and this time around (Easter brochure), at client's request, we viewed around 6,000 images to arrive at our selection for him of ~100 shots. Toady he phoned to thank us for our selection which he could show the printers. However, for those extra shots, the printer had made him an offer he could hardly refuse. The printers told him that they had access to a 'royalty free' archive and that they would provide him with all the shots he needed for free.

I have no doubt that though our use of microstock, the printer has now discovered the joys of microstock + subscription. For $200 he takes out a one month FT sub which allows him to download 750 images which he can store for future use of his clients at 30 cents/image. Must be the cheapest form of customer loyalty ever invented.
Wish I had thought of it earlier..........but maybe my contributor mind-set prevented me.

A poster to the FT blog noticed that despite having 'sapphire' status micromonkey only had 24 images in their portfolio.

I took a look at all the 'gold' rankings and above and discovered yet another 3 gold members with either too few images for their status or too few sales of the images they now have to justify 'gold'.

Looks like there have been some large portfolio exits recently. Whether this is also behind some complaints regarding reduced views by some members, it's difficult to say.