Currently attending Durham College for Social Media. I offer Professional Services in the field of Photography and am also able to produce thing’s such a Logos, Short films, and any work to be done with a DSLR Camera as well as some audio projects.
My main goal is to explore all avenues of photography to keep myself as busy as possible and as of late I have really started to dive into content creation and UGC ( User Generated Content ) I have learned a lot studying Social Media and plan to use that knowledge and my expertise in Media creation to hopefully bring my abilities to a company if need. I have already had partnership deals and built relationships with well known brands such as Roots, Nissan, HGTV, BMW, and many more! I am looking forward to using my unique and diverse ability to create content and when and how the best ways of sharing it are.
I have won 2 Best in Class rewards in a local photo competition and have had several photos used in local Newspaper / Online blogs and have a built a average but interactive following through my social channels and enjoy keeping up with the most active trends and utilizing my abilities in every way possible.
I look forward to continuing this passion and turning it into a full time job and career!
My name is Zach Bird, I am a 28 year old freelance photographer based out of Durham Region. MY personal brand already currently exists. I run my own brand called Zach Bird Photography, it is a completely registered business and I shoot weddings, corporate gigs and events, product and social media campaigns, and wildlife photography on my free time.
I will say my name fits quite well with my business name and it is great for marketing myself and the style of photography that I do, I don’t think it can get any more personal than that when the name of a business lines up with the persons real name.
Being a personal brand comes with its ups and downs for-sure, the downsides can definitely be that you need to do everything yourself, yes I can set my own hours, but sometimes being the only one trying to start a business, your reach can only be so far and it starts with connections. The one good thing and my favourite thing about having a personal brand is I have the ability to create my own content, I don’t need to go through approval, I can take risks, try new things and do things at my own pace.
What is your version of personal branding and What would be your favourite part about having a personal brand?
Target Audiences can play a huge role in ones success online. This approach has been used quite frequently in my field of work and has been in recent years.
Something a Business Account on instagram can tap into is called Analytics. Using this tool as a business has helped me immensely over the last few years, It has helped me gather so much information on my followers and audience for things like Times of day to post, The countries that are most active on my page, the age group that most frequently visits my page, what days are better to post than others and also the gender percentage of my followers.
Following these analytics has really helped me to better understand how to maximize my social media use and what I should and shouldn’t be sharing more frequently than others.
Something else users can tap into on social media when trying to reach a specific target audience is creating reels or posts with music that is currently trending within that said app, Instagram has loads of short soundtracks that are being used every day by millions of users, and if you can create a video within that thread with that song you are sure to drive attention to your page, some of which can be brand new to your audience but increase a lot of success in social media.
What is your target audience and what do you do to engage them in the best way possible?
Communication Styles can be a very important aspect of communication through the online world in a digital age. This can also be called ‘ Digital Storytelling ‘
It is important when writing for social media that we write in a particular way that is well represented and understood by the community or audience who will be reading it, taking notes from or gaining further knowledge about the topic. Another important aspect of this is that we make sure we have gathered all the correct and accurate facts and research together to help support our story and that will keep thing clear and transparent for the reader.
Something I really learned from my own communication style is that ‘ A little goes a long way ‘ It’s not always about writing a long paragraph or story with very specific details but sometimes can simply be gathering 1-2 sentences that can highlight the most intriguing topics of the story and at first glance can keep the reader engaged and interested in continuing to read and keep them coming back for future stories. A perfect example of using this style can be used when writing for social media, captions and descriptions kept short and sweet tend to be the ones that grab the most attention and can easily be shareable and manageable to get through reading them.
What kind of communication style are you? Why does that work for you or why not? What could be done to improve this style?
Hello all! Hope everyone had a great summer! I am one of the rear few people who much prefer Spring and Fall with their comfortable temperatures and vibrant colours, however with winters so harsh as we have in Ontario, it’s hard to resist a hot summer day in the middle of July when I know within 5 months it will be 30-40 degrees colder.
That being said, my summer vacation was filled with lots of outdoor time and quality time with the ones I love most in my life! I went golfing a couple times a month, my girlfriend and I started partnering with various pet goods brands with our dog Prince on his social media account and learned a lot about my own interest in my current profession of Photography. I shot lots of weddings this year, but furthermore started a new hobby within my Photography of Bird Watching. I spent loads of time exploring the local nature reserves and waterfronts of my area and collected a tally of over 60 bird species out of the 300+ species here in Ontario! I plan to hopefully capture fall and winter migratory birds and hopefully publish a photo book with the collection of images I have captured this year before the new year!
Other than that, it was a good summer vacation well spent, but I am ready to get cracking again with this online program and further expand my knowledge in this field and industry so I can only continue to grow my exposure as a creator!
Over the years, there have been hundreds of thousands of Social Media horror stories, from cyber bullying, to stalking and even a term called ” cat fishing ” all serve the same affect, and have created enormous amounts of mental illnesses, some of which have been life threatening to individuals and families all over the world.
Anderson Cooper recently did a 60 Minutes segment on the process of more than 2 ,000 families in North America that are Suing Social Media giants like, Meta, TikTok, Twitter and Snapchat due to its negative impact that these apps have had on their children’s lives. During the segment with Anderson Cooper, Sharyn Alfonsi discusses the potential impact of recent legal challenges against these social media platforms and have even been directly responsible for the deaths of some of their children. Alfonsi talks to the families of social media victims and the organization’s founder.
Credit: CBS News
This segment included a number of devastating stories some of which included suicide stories regarding things the parents had no idea about their child going through some of these things. Something I realized from this segment and just from my own knowledge is that social media is way to accessible to our youth. There is age restrictions however there is no identity check, which we all know is an available form of technology that isn’t being used by these social media platforms. Any 10 year old child can go onto Facebook and ” State ” that they are of age to make an account, and away they go with no knowledge of the platform.
I would say platforms need to do a better job securing its users but also at the same time identifying these issues as they are occurring it is also a very difficult thing for parents to track their child’s lives through social media and this is what had occurred in a lot of these stories as the parents weren’t aware that their children gained access to these social media platforms.
What do you think would be the best way to address this issue, and keep children protected from social media until they are ready and of age?
Recently, I took up birding on my free time, or can be sometimes explained in simple terms as ” Bird Watching ” As some people may know I am a photographer and while theres currently no work in Birding it has become quite a passion of mine.
Photo by Zachary Bird
Something I have had to figure it out is how to create the right reach for my photos on Instagram. Before I picked up this new hobby, my Instagram feed could be viewed as more of a city/landscape photography style whereas now if you visited my page you would see a lot more a nature and wildlife vibe. That being said, I have had to completely change my hashtag presence on these photos, as after all they wouldn’t fall under the same category as #ImagesOfToronto or #StreetsOfToronto.
I find with hashtags, a lot of people at least from a certain era will just simply hashtag what they are doing in that photo. #LongWeekend, #BeachVibez, #AtTheCottage. Most of these hashtags wont reach too large of an audience so something I have had to find is what Bird Watching hashtags would allow my photos to be seen in a large community of other avid Birders like #BirdsOfCanada, #BirdingOntario, #WildlifePhotography, these hashtags have millions of posts which will increase the viewership on my recent posts.
Photo By Zachary Bird
I have found over the years that really researching what hashtags have the most reach plays a huge role in the engagement results of a social media page and it is a tool not the average person would think to use, however could be extremely beneficial for any Artists and Organizations out there looking to create more reach on their feed.
I have decided to start this blog on a personal note once again, relating it to the experiences i’ve had working with brands and even noticing effective strategies with my own Instagram business page. Over the last 3-5 years there has been a large increase in traffic to one of Instagram and Facebooks newest forms of communication through social media that is called a Story.
A story, in social media terms can be explained as an in-app feature that allows users to share ephemeral content available for 24 hours. Your Instagram Story is published separately from your in-feed content and while the story is a lot shorter than a post or reel it is a quick way that brands and people are using to share an important experience or in the brands sake a brief look at a product or event, which can sometimes even prompt you to swipe up and visit an Instagram profile or website for more information.
Let’s Clark 2021
A Reel, in social media terms can be explained as a new concept where you can share and discover engaging short videos on Instagram that you would fit all the most entertaining and important information in one 60 second video. The new feature lets you edit 60 second multi-clip videos with various effects and audio to make the result as entertaining as possible. The only limitation is your own imagination.
Instagram Launches Reels – TuneCore
August 7th, 2020
What I have found over the years is that a lot of brands have opted to exercise the idea that not all users of social media platforms, want to sit and read a long caption about a product or an experience and instead would rather watch a video with artistic points of view, relatable music and short text, now that doesn’t mean just any video will work. Organizations have also found that users also don’t prefer to sit and watch a 5 minute video with the same person talking with a voiceover, or the same song on a loop for 5 minutes. What they have found is the best way to get a message across is to choose 1 or 2 main aspects of that product and/or experience, event etc and highlight that in one short 15 second video that keeps the viewer entertained with music, transitions, bright text and encouraging videography where they will then want to get involved and can then be taken to another external link through the caption or story with more information on that topic should they grab an interest for it.
I personally have noticed this work first hand, being a photographer, some brands will even take the images and turn it into a slideshow so that they can add music and I have noticed a huge difference in the engagement rate with reels and stories versus a traditional post on the feed with a long informative caption. Another reason these reels get noticed with a larger audience is a lot of the music used is currently trending, meaning other users on Instagram are using that same sound track for their own reels and anyone using that soundtrack will show up on the explore page of that particular sound track meaning it will be seen to a wider audience than if it were just posted to a feed with only your own followers.
If i’m being honest as a photographer it has been quite difficult to adapt to this transition because sharing stills is the nature of my job and what I always used Instagram for over the years, however I have began to self teach myself videography in hopes to share a video version of each photograph that I take and express what that photograph looked like in real time.
Here is an example of how I would promote this blog through Facebook and Instagram to those looking to learn about the effectiveness of Stories and Reels in Social Media:
Facebook: What are Reels and Stories and how can they effectively be used to promote brand content? Find out here: http://bit.ly/3MZZQYi
Instagram: What are #Reels and #Stories and how do they effectively increase a brands success through Social Media? Find out here: http://bit.ly/3MZZQYi
Over the last 10 years, I have battled through all the ins and outs of social network platforms Facebook and Instagram, figuring out which option is the best way for me to express my work but at the same time tell a story through each photograph without having to write too much in the caption. Something I really noticed when posting on Facebook was it was more about the caption and what was actually written in the post that grabbed the attention of others where as Instagram it only grabbed the attention of others if it was a bright and characteristic photo that was relatable in some way to the followers or something unique that they had never seen in their life.
I was able to build a following over over 2,000 followers through Instagram just from posting an image every day with an average of about 20-30 likes and 5-10 comments per post. It started out with me posting unique photos of the city scape where I would capture a unique angle of the city from a vantage point that wasn’t as accessible as your average tourist spot ie. Centre Islands, Polson Pier, Nathan Philips Square etc. That same image posted on Facebook with the same caption and details as Instagram would only produce about 5-10 interactions total with a combination of likes and comments. Now, that being said if I posted that photo with a little bit more context, maybe a story of how the Image was taken, what camera settings were used etc. It may have done a whole lot better.
Hannah Butler Feb 20, 2020
It has been proven that Instagram can be explained as the better option for a Photographer to express their talents through Instagram as a digital portfolio for brands and organizations to look for when potentially considering an individual for professional work.
IF you are a photographer/videographer or any sort of media enthusiast, which social media platform is your top choice when trying to present your work publicly in the social media world.
Algonquin College Social Media Certificate Program 