Stephanie Mensing is a third year photographer now leaving uni to explore her passion of photography and making her way in the world of industry by running social media accounts for companies as a full time job
before our interview we had a small correspondence emailing detailing a lot of useful information
“Yeah definitely have it in the works, its best to plan a head a month worth of posts, I have been chatting to tracy Marshall from northern narratives, as I now have a job in change of a companies social media presence! I have learned that facebook is great but instagram can really channel our audience better!
this is what she said ‘Plan ahead. Definitely plan. So have a sense of each account as a brand. Think of what it says as a brand and then get a few weeks’ outline for it in your mind with a few tips. So for example this recent NN one has been a mix of the open call, sharing other people’s photography things and now a take over for a week in a couple of weeks time. I know it all ahead roughly for a couple of weeks. Same with my own. I know it’s been very charity sale for a week or so, now is moving into sharing other people’s things and then into Bristol photo festival. That’s it to 22nd roughing. So having a guideline for each week ahead and maybe two to three days drafted and saved.’
So i roughly post with my company about 3/4 a week, it doesnt mean its all in one go, cus people will get annoyed with same photos appearing up on the page (understandably) The plan does help a lot as you suddenly forget an account
If you start to build up the account before you publish people will like that and you might get more interaction with viewers for when you publish you could do an option of online etc (like maybe using issu) I have something similar on my website https://stephaniemensing.com/Books so thats a fun way to view things if people are unable to buy could do like a digital version etc.
You could start out a weekly email a bit like james monday morning message. using Mailchimp! or for time time being do what your doing but when branching out could start a blog, which will also be a good presence! ‘Sign up” will be a great choice for most publishers. It is leading directly to an email newsletter signup form. This gets interested users immediately into a valuable interaction with you. If they click, you’ll get an email address. You can use it to build a database of email addresses – this way you would be able to stay in touch with them by sending news, sales offers and information about special events or actions.
Show something that readers won’t find in the magazine: behind the scenes of the interview, your daily work, members of your team. People just like it! And have the impression that they get something special. It’s also a way to show your brand from a different side.
Concentrate on those social referrals which are driving loyalty. Google Analytics flags this up in weekly stats. Start focusing on what content drives deeper engagement, which metrics drive a deeper relationship with your content, your brand and your business. so doesnt have to be google but just the website analytics but google is free! You are able to see the costs which have been sold.
I thought that take overs each week would be good way of bringing people! I wasn’t sure whether this was just a spa people based publication! But I’m sure previous alumnus would be very happy to help (not just our year)! As some of them actually work in publications within bath! I don’t know how many of you are working on this, but as a part of our final year exhibition (to which we are still attempting to do) we split up into groups for responsibilities that were always good and had a meeting once a week to say what everyones done! This was also a good way to keep up with everyone and make friends! we learnt to definitely to split responsibility as people got quite angry. (still are to this day) I also thought photograd do are really good at promoting theyre monthly postcards they also do weekly hastag
I also dont know if you know that uwe do an inhouse photo agency https://www.photohouse.uk/Thats a good thing to look at!
http://www.antlerpress.co.uk/
http://loupemag.com/
https://www.circusjournal.com/themagazine is one of my favourite magazine about bath, maybe get in contact with them and I’m sure they will be happy to help out. Its free and they drop there magazine off around shops each quatre. So maybe ask them as a starting publication what they do etc.
https://www.inpublishing.co.uk/articles/a-7step-social-media-plan-for-your-new-magazine-862
Im sorry if thats alot!
I hope that helps!!
If you ever need anything I am more than happy to help, us third years aren’t scary don’t worry!
Steph “
this was super useful and gave me some great ideas for our magazine, she seemed very knowledgeable to which i decided to interview her
full interview can be found here
edited interview transcript
“ALC How did you start working for a company?
SM yeah so i work for a company and basically, I worked for them previously and they asked me if I wanted to work for them and be in charge of taking photos for them, I obviously took the opportunity and said yeah
ALC and that lead to running their social media ??
SM yeah so I took out an ad in our local newspaper because I was looking for people to photograph and they saw me, and they had zero social media presence and they got in contact with me about a position
ALC so what is it that you do for them ??
SM so they have four companies. It’s like working for Topshop in a way, like running their marketing, social media, and posting photos for them to their Instagram. Its called the India Shop and it’s a fair trade store that imports everything from India, also own HoneyStreet Cafe, HoneyStreet Handmade, as well as the HoneyStreet canal boats and I’ve basically taken on their Facebook, Instagram, trip adviser, emails you get sent out. I’ve also been photographing all of their stock from the India shop, so I’ve been doing all that and set up in painting in the studio
ALC wow, that sounds like quite a lot!
SM yeah it is quite a lot *laughs*
ALC so is there much networking to be done ?? like are their people you meet at events or people you’ve been put in contact with because of this role?
SM yeah of course, so it’s not just me sat alone in a little room, I’ve been talking to people who are in charge of doing website development and how they work, and that’s kind of a good way to to go about it because you’re talking to people from fairtrade and then you get to know them quite well, on a name to name basis, you also get to talk to people who do group communities at Wiltshire
ALC that’s pretty cool that there are loads of opportunities to meet people both who are apart of the industry as well as outside, helping you build those connections, but do you get much creative freedom within this ??
SM oh yeah, I get full rein, so the founder is like 80 years old and this is her passion project, but the son is taking it over and has little knowledge of how to photograph the products and put them on the website. He’s like ‘here you go Steph, you’re here to be arty, have fun!’
ALC *laughs*
SM like yesterday I spent 9 hours in my room photographing all weird kinds of soap, with lights and everything, it was really so much fun and so cool
ALC that’s really cool, how do you many that workload though?? You work post for so many companies and doing 9 hour shifts, surely that’s quite a lot for you ??
SM so I have a planner, and so with that, I’m able to schedule what I need to do each day so it forms a routine, I also bought a monthly subscription to Hootsuite, which is integration for social media, helping with all the accounts that I run as I’m able to schedule posts each week and it does it automatically, so that’s a really good way to do it as you don’t have to type everything out like hashtags every day, its a nightmare otherwise, I seduced a week’s worth on Monday, which gives me Wednesday to sort next weeks posts, its quite simple jobs but its quite fun to do
ALC yeah that makes a lot of sense because I know currently I’m struggling with my social media management since I recently opened my second art account, but if I’m able to schedule like that or repeating hashtags that’s way better
SM oh completely, so you’ve just got to think about, your image and what you want to show because else you’ll have too many photos, its difficult but its fun to think about the content you have to create
ALC oh sweet, how does affect your own work though ??
SM I haven’t been able to photography much since uni really since ive been too busy anyway and I just don’t want to touch a camera on the weekend but I’ve started planning trips for myself to go off and shoot, so I’ve got all of my grandfather’s old film from the 1930s and he was a quite well known person within the air force so many a massive catalogue of all of his work that hes taken, so yeah its interesting, but yeah with everything that I do I get to meet so many new people and because I like to meet odd weird and wonderful people, like train people or pigeon people, but I’ve meant a motorbike infusiast whos into old bikes form 1910s and he did his Ph.D. on New Zealand so I’ve been talking to him a lot and taking photographs, so there is that aspect that I can meet all these people, where I also work there’s also this crop circle museum so theres all these people coming in so im always thinking ‘oh I could do you for a project’. It’s just meeting my own contacts for my own personal benefit
ALC that sounds like some great networking,
SM yeah its really good
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ALC I mean to ask you, do you get paid for the work that you do ??
SM well its a full time job so its an hourly rate, as if you were to work in a cafe or something
ALC where do you see yourself going from this ??
SM I would personally like to do this 2-3 more years, hopefully, since at the moment I’m on a 6 month contract, so it would make a great portfolio, so in two weeks of working there I already had 100 followers, so I’d like to do it more, and maybe start my own, its interesting to see that I built this social media presence, like id like to work for peoples social media company. So people hire me to run their media in the future but there isn’t an aspect of what I want to achieve its a case of being in the air at the moment
ALC so in our emails together you mentioned about northern narratives, and working alongside, Tracy Marshall??
SM so she came to uni actually, and she liked my work so we’ve been in contact a lot since she came to a gusset lecture talk, so the contacts we make in uni are quite a big thing since most of us have all been in contact with one person or another, so just ask them, take full advantage, they make you go to them but they’re a helpful resource to have, I’ve seen you come to a few of them.
ALC yeah I’ve really enjoyed some of the gust speakers
SM they’re so interesting but if they like your work, you’ve just gotta be honest with them and take the criticism as well, so yeah Tracy liked my work so I sent her a PDF and because I had just published my book I sent one to her as well, so it went to ken grant, martin parr, and that kind of community of photographers, but with Tracy I also have to admit that in 3rd year portfolio reviews a lot of people have been handing them out for free because of what’s been going on recently, handing them out is always a good way to reference them
ALC I feel that covers most of my questions but I was wondering if you had any tips for Emerging Artists to get into the industry??
SM competition! I wish I started doing in my 2nd year but I didn’t have the confidence in my own work until 3rd year, if there’s ever a chance to enter your work and potential have it displayed, for example for portrait photographers there’s the BJP portrait prize, because sappy get into their book 2nd/3rd year and it was a sick photo which was really cool, and that really made everyone buckle down and be like ‘right we’ve got competition we need to properly go for it’, it really helps get your name out there.
ALC oh wow
SM but maybe not when you’ve got social media posts, don’t do the same photo over and over again, as people might find them boring or get annoyed by them, you want to keep your audience engaged and engage with them. like did you get marked on that for your PC3??
ALC yeah I think there was an aspect of engagement and the analysis of things
SM but yeah, its an aspect of yourself and it’s the first thing they see, how you structure your social media page really reflects who you are as a creator, its really weird but you don’t notice it until you think about it. But hmm getting out there, , , I’m trying to think about all the things we spoke about, oh the martin parr foundation is a great resource too.
ALC yeah
SM but building up those relationships with others is the best thing, and not just with your coursemates but with the guest lectures and teachers too, you don’t realise it until 3rd year it’s really the best thing, they’ll be honest with you, and in 3rd year you start to think outside of the box, like who can I talk to?
ALC that makes a lot of sense
SM for my recent project with pheasants I contacted my local paper and its crazy how many group chats and people willing there are
ALC I would have never thought to contact a paper like that
SM but yeah that’s the thing people will happily shoot for you and the papers are happy to post something for you too, facebook too was such a huge help for me, I got hundreds of people within the first few weeks messaging me, I had 16/17 shoots lined up for my final project, but generally, if you’re looking for people social media is great for documentary photography
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SM people can be so welcoming but you have to take everything with a pinch of salt not everyone is going to like your work, and that was quite a big thing for me to learn personally because I never showed my work in 2nd year because I was terrified of showing it, I never showed my work until I got the gratification that it was a good bit of work”
Alex's Photos & Thoughts 