The Blog

I try to display a good variety of images that showcase the work I create within the mining industry. The term “variety is the spice of life” holds true in the social media platform. If you or your company showcase the same thing over and over on social media, the images become redundant and therefore viewer retention is less and less. If everything posted is the same product shot or the same process then what would be the benefit of someone following the social media stream? A companies social media platform is more important today than it ever was and if it is not curated properly, the momentum could quickly fall short.

“Hey James, your a mining photographer, what do you know about business and marketing?“

Well, I have been in business for over 25+ years using a strong understanding of platform marketing specifically social media. I have been blogging my business since early 2001, spoken to thousands of professional photographers on marketing and branding while hosting dozens of seminars on the subject, so I do have some “in the trenches experience” that I put into my strategies. Even this post you are reading is all part of my master plan.

Over the years photographing 1000’s of people doing a variety of jobs for business’s, entrepreneurs, and corporations I have learned the value of capturing the “variety” .

Variety is an easy formula to follow:

– Product
– People
– Environment
– Community
– Behind The Scenes
– Client
– Persistence/Consistent


Product – Showcase the product from start to finish, how it got there, in the rough to the pristine finished product.

People – Showcase the people behind the product, everyone from the bottom to the top. Celebrate those that make the company and product a success.

Environment – Showcase the surrounding area where it all happens. The facility, grounds, warehouses.

Community – Showcase the community in which your company thrives and the impact it has within the community.

Behind The Scenes – Showcase the events, parties, photo shoots, outings, seminars and anything that happens within the company that people would not see unless they were there.

Persistence/Consistent – This is the most important. Marketing requires persistence to pay off because sometimes it doesn’t happen right away. In the age of “wanting it now” the fundamentals of marketing and branding are still the same. Be seen all the time everywhere so when the time comes your name is the first to come to mind. Be consistent with your marketing, no matter if one campaign fails, take what worked, and put if forth to the next, immediately.

When I have the task of creating a photo library for a mining company variety is my ultimate goal. Variety is what works within the marketing realm and I need to produce a library that can keep ones attention throughout the year as they are used across the marketing platforms.

Look at your feeds, is there room for variety?