Can't they make it easier to use their websites.

When you 're not a professional on web coding for the world wide web, it’s sometimes hard to figure out how the hell these people set up their websites. One of the most frustrating problems with Facebook is trying to find how to delete a page that you accidentally made. In another case, set up an ad for my photography business and my side project the, Just Questions Podcast. In both cases, I need to reach people to photograph for them or interview them for the blog. Either way, I’m trying to restrict the geographical area that I’m connecting to, to deliver my services. There is also an issue with companies on the web that don’t want to help you by answering your questions. They use a bot to guess and limit your inquiries. It’s like they don’t want your business.

In both cases, Facebook and WeTransfer, I want to spend money to use their service. On Facebook, I want to run an ad, but only in my general geographical area. With WeTransfer, it’s about payment for my account. I have an invoice stating that I paid my yearly charge for my pro account, but their website state I haven’t paid yet, I need to complete the transaction. The bank shows that the money is out of my account, about as soon as I actually clicked that button.

How can you use these services easily, that’s the question? Don’t they want my money? Don’t they want me to use their service?

Marketing and Advertising

Do any of you actually know the difference between the two, marketing and advertising.  We collectively interchange those terms when we talk about selling our products, but actually they are part of each other and different from each other.  Do a quick search on the internet on the following phrase, “the difference between marketing and advertising,” leads us to the following passage or quote.

“Marketing refers to preparing a product for the marketplace. Advertising is making your product and service known to an audience or marketplace. Advertising is a specific step in marketing. Advertising uses the data and research collected by marketing strategies to best communicate the brand.”

Why is this important to a content creator that wants to make a living and get his product out to his audience? You can make the best podcast, but if you don’t have people to interview, you don’t have a show.  Me, being a professional photographer: with decades of experience working for a government agency, working with other photographers as a second and first photographer, including a few clients that I develop over the years, you would think, you would not need to advertise.  

As they say in the business, you 're only as good as your last image, and the public will only associate to you what your last image was. You could be the best architectural photographer, but if the public only see’s your portrait work, they might never consider you for that architectural assignment.  There is always a need to promote your work in front of your potential clients so they can consider you for their jobs.

This is where your marketing plans come to play.  Ask yourself several questions first: “Who do you want to work with?” and “What kind of work do you want to create?”  On the surface, simple questions, but they are at the core of your business and marketing strategies.  Figure out what kind of photography you want to create and then advertise that to your market.

Your advertising should reflect your portfolio. You don’t show portraits photography to real estate realtors if you want their real estate photography business.  You should not show landscape photography to businesses, in less you are trying to sell them office decor.  It’s important to tailor your advertising to those that you are trying to sell to, and know your market.

What are you selling? Do you have different services, produce virtual tours, or are you selling a product that completes a certain need for your clients.  The best campaign stands out by selling a simple point.  Don’t include portraits if you're trying to get real estate assignments for your virtual tours.  Keep it simple and to the point.  This doesn’t mean to exclude the different photography that you cover, just focus towards your market.  It might mean that you have several types of advertising directed to your market that all links back to you.

In today’s world of reaching the public you have several digital outreach systems: Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, Twitter Ads, that will be cheaper than traditional TV, radio and print ads.  You can focus on the ads, for a cost, to a specific group, like only in the area that you want to work in.  I’m currently only interested in working in the DC, Virginia, and Maryland area.  I could do a tailor Facebook ad that only reaches these people, for a cost.  This will add up fast for a person just starting out to market their business.

My plan is to produce at least three types of ads for my Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts. Rotate them between the accounts, daily.  I also have a podcast that is about the everyday person about their life accomplishments.  I figure I can get people to come to blog and find my photography website.  This is the same idea I have for my event work: I photography the event, pass out a card with the internet location for them to see, and hopefully they will explore the main website.

That’s the main basic idea about advertising and marketing, getting people to view your work and hired you.

Trying to explain all of it's side effects.

The hardest thing I find about living wtih Tourette Syndrome (TS) is not actually the tics, the involuntary body part movements, but trying to explain all the side effects and conditions that come with having Tourette Syndrome. Ok, most of us have OCD, and Anxiety or depression. ADHD is also in about 60% of us who have TS, I'm likely to have never been diagnose with ADHD.

I have other conditions that I contribute to TS, like hair pulling and the need to feel the pain over and over again from a sore. Impulsiveness is another condition that I have and have to guard it closely or else I will shoot my mouth off and tell people what I actuallty think in the most improper moment.

For a long time, if I had something to say to someone, I would basically slow down or even stop what I was doing till I released that urge. It would not be released till I talked or wrote out my ideas to that person. It's one of the reason I am so guard with whom I'm friends with or have attraction too. Currently I am on medicine that helps me control my impulsiveness.

It has made me unique in the fact that I take the initative with my work and projects, trying to do the best that I can and also do a complete job and not some half ass job. I enjoy figuring things out and determine how they can be beneficial to whom I am working for.

Another condition that I have is not really TS related but recovering is. I have what you could call an allergy to tomatoes and other acidity types of foods, that couse my stomach to revolt. This effects all the parts of my body that is connected to my stomach, like my tongue. A very bad case of heartburn, but upped to the ninth degree. This also effets my tongue by making it very sensitive to the touch and develops sores along the edge from my rubbing it against my teeth.

Now, this is where my TS comes to play. It takes me longer to heal and get over the heartburn, because my tongue is still on firer. It takes about a week for me to stop sucking and touching my tongue against anything. I persopnally think its my need to feel a repeateing pain from the injury. I don't know the offical medical term for conditions like this, but I feel that some people with TS, like to do self harm, because they like to feel the pain.

Another issue that I had was sleep disorder, I had a problem keeping asleep and staying awake during the day. Since college, I would only get about forty-five minutes sleep then I would awake up. I would go back to sleep, sometimes,and wake up again in about forty-five minutes. I was able to sleep on a dime, fall asleep at any time. I did this for years, till one day I went to a new neurologist, he recommended a medicine called risperidone.

Resperidone is heavy duty and I take it will several other medicines to help me control my TS and OCD. I have to say at this point, don't go my what I say, but listen to your neurologist. Just because it works for me to control my TS and sleep habits, doesn't mean it will work for you. I'm no doctor and only been studing TS and all it's side effects because I actually have them.

Whom ever said Tourette Syndrome isn't painful, never had it.

It’s not the individual twitching, but from a series of tics and twitches. You try to hid those tics from others by controlling those burst of energy, it becomes tiring, sore and painful. It’s not just physically painful but mentally tiring from a day of controlling your Tourette’s. So is Tourette’s painful, I say yes.

My repetitive coughing, leads to couching up phlegm and people think you have Covid. My leg, arm, neck twitching make people ask if I’m ok, but try to explain what you got, and they don’t want to hear. Some people will watch you carefully to try and prove that you don’t really have what you say you have.

One traveling partner decided that I didn’t have what I said because, well I was sleeping on the train, I didn’t twitch during my sleep. So he decided that I was me looking for attention and I didn’t have what I said I have.

Some people will just not react that I twitch and act like it doesn’t happen. So because they don’t accept it then their most not have any pain associated with it. But I do have to say that the people I work with are cool about it. As long as I can do my job, then they accept it, as long as it’s not to weird.

I’m don’t have much vocal tics, but I do cough, blowing and puffing my lips, clicking my fingers sometimes. Some times my puffing makes my lips chapped. Which leads me to my tic’s for causing my mouth sores worst. So I dread getting colds, and I think cold meds make my twitching worst.

So far my mental tics havn’t been over blown, I seem with medicine to control those, but if I don’t take my meds, I can become very obsessive with my ideas. Sometimes that not a bad thing.

So what do I do to keep the pain down, take pain killers or keep my head and neck still while I am in my bed. Sometimes, I find a private place and just start twitching.

What does Tourette"s mean to me.

Well, I am reminded each day that I have Tourette’s. Specially when I am alone, driving home from work, or right after I get home from work. It just all comes out, as they say. Neck shakes, arm jerks, leg jerks, the jaw grind. Starts simple and then becomes hard going through a set pattern till my evening medicines kick ins. The rest of the time I’m twitching, but I’m good at hiding it.  I twitch, motor and vocal all the time. I once had an attorney ask me a question about how long does my twitching affects my normal daily routine. I really didn’t have an answer, because I feel my twitch all the time. I’m surprise most people don’t even see it or notice them. I think it’s, if I say nothing, it will go away.
 When I’m working out a problem, or taking pictures, I can forget that I’m doing it. People tell me to reduce the stress in my life. They think I must be overly worried and stressing out over something and that why I have multiple tics. Well, I hate to tell them, stress doesn’t bother me.
 I’ve been working at a stress for job for over thirty-seven years, I’m used to it. Hey when I was five, I must have been stressing life too much, because I was ticking back then. We didn’t know what it was. That was way back in the 6o’s and few people know what Tourette Syndrome actually was.  Tourette’s to me is who I am. It made me pay attention to details, develop an interest into the arts. It made me know I can survive this world by myself, to explore different things, to look for the unique. But it has also held me back from approaching people and try to be close. Because it worried me, they would not accept me. Till this day, I’m great at developing a story, on paper or with images, but try to get me in front of an audience, then I clamp shut.
 What made me overcome this fear was my camera. With a camera, I can do something, like take pictures, I had a purpose there. People would only see the camera and not the tics. I became the lay back guy around the office, mostly to protect me from people that would turn my tics around against me.
 My career as a photographer has its up and down. Some people that I worked with haven’t been on my side, but that’s Ok, they were not my friend. But overall, my agency has been good.