Client posts photos without tagging me

Hello!

What are my rights if a client keeps posting photos without tagging me?

Background: a friend of mine works for a dog food company, and we scheduled an all-day shoot last weekend with the company. The company is the professional photos that I took without tagging me- on their business instagram and their local store instagram and on their Facebook & other platforms. I'm not sure if it's my friend or the company who's doing this, but it's rubbing me the wrong way (they've already posted about 6 photos. 2 photos in I asked my friend to tag me, they did, but haven't tagged me in the ones thereafter).

What are my rights? Should I keep bugging my friend? It's a small business, so they don't get too much traffic/engagement, but it's the principle of it all... this can apply to any other jobs as well.

"Is this the hill you want to die on?"

That's what someone told me when I first experienced your problem. You have to decide whether it's in your best interest to pursue. Here are the questions I recommend you ask yourself.

1) Is the relationship with the company established and positive? In other words, if someone asks them who took the photographs, is there any reason to suspect they would not give out your information?

2) Is there some monetary benefit they are receiving by posting the photographs? If so, does your contract with them state they must provide photo credit and/or compensation?

3) Is there a possibility of future business with that company which would be put in jeopardy by you getting on their back about it?

Have you politely asked them to provide you with credit? If so, and if they refused, then you might consider further action. It might just be a simple oversight. It might be ignorance (an opportunity for you to educate them). If they do not give you credit as it is due, nicely but firmly remind them that it is in your contract (which you have, right?) that the copyright to the photographs are yours and that they must provide photo credit.

Do you have a contract?

If not, what you get is what they want to give you.

Next time get it in writing, signed. Doesn't need to be a fancy legalese contract, just a letter that describes what you are going to do and what they must do in exchange.

As Michael says above, pick your battles. Don't alienate a potential client unless you want to lose their business. Which assumes that you are getting paid.

You are getting paid, yes?

If they small company as you said,

"so they don't get too much traffic/engagement, but it's the principle of it all...". They paid for your job, so it is up to you, what is more important, client or principle.

1) Is the relationship with the company established and positive? In other words, if someone asks them who took the photographs, is there any reason to suspect they would not give out your information?

Relationship with the company is my friend. When I agreed to do this, just thought it would be quick and easy (dogs aren't too difficult). I believe if someone asked them who took the photographs, they would recommend. Which leads me to believe it's just ignorance, or not my friend posting the photos.

2) Is there some monetary benefit they are receiving by posting the photographs? If so, does your contract with them state they must provide photo credit and/or compensation?

Monetary benefit was received day-of. They verbally stated they would tag me in all photos posted. I was''t too worried about it at the time so I didn't draw up a contract (my bad definitely).

3) Is there a possibility of future business with that company which would be put in jeopardy by you getting on their back about it?

It was verbally mentioned by omeone else in the company that I would definitely be hired again next time, which is why I don't want to make too big of a deal about it.

Have you politely asked them to provide you with credit?

I have, I asked my friend to give credit on the 2 photos posted at the time. Since then, more photos have been posted without due credit.

pick your battles. Don't alienate a potential client unless you want to lose their business. Which assumes that you are getting paid.

 

You are getting paid, yes?

Yes, I was paid, which is why I came here to this forum first before I said another word to them! Haha. Thanks for the advise.

If they bought them for advertising, why would they tag you? Most ads I see don't say anything about the photographer.

Not an ad, a casual social media post. Most instagram posts I see have multiple tags

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UPDATE:

I posted one of the photos on my instagram today and they commented "Best day ever!" I have no idea what's going on. haha

I think it's really great when two small businesses work together to grow. In this case the small dog food company is trying to dip their paws into social media and increase their exposure and grow and in a desire to do that they've hired you're services as a photographer! You want the exact same thing they want, exposure for your business so you can grow as well. You both want the same thing / But, you hit a little turbulence here, with the whole photo credit thing. I think you got some credit, which is good. You've got something better out of this, probably more valuable to you in the long run than those photos will be to them, and that's a lesson in you're own business that will save you frustrations and help you manage your professional expectations in the future.

The dog food company is supposed to know how to make dog food. They need to be able to tell people what's in it, the different product lines, how they make it. They need to know dog food. It's their business right? If I go to buy dog food from them, they should be able to tell me if I can feed it to my big dog and my little dog, or just the little dog, serving size, etc. Every bag of dog food I've ever bought tells me how much food to give my jack russell and how much to give my german shepherd. The dog food company provides us with instructions on how to use their products. If I buy a 30 pound bag of dog food, and it doesn't have clear instructions on it so I just do what I think is appropriate and give my pug 2 cup a day and it turns out that this dog food is high calories concentrated food for like a bull mastiff or something and my pug gains double it's body weight in a week is it my fault? Without clear instructions from the retailer, how am I supposed to know how to use the product? So that's the area of expertise of your client, to make and sell quality dog food. This is their role. Making and selling dog food is their service, the dog food is the product, part of their service is making sure we know how to use the product.

You're the commercial photographer. That's your service. You've taken money to provide a product. You're product is the photographs. It's you're role to give the client a clear understanding of what they can expect to receive, how they can use the finished product, for how long they can use it and what credit, if any, your business will receive. This is why if your engaging in photography as commerce, you neeeeeeeed to have pen to paper, clear expectations for you and you're client. It is not the fault of the client that they have used your product wrong. They are not using the product wrong on purpose. You were not clear to them how the product was intended to be used. You've made a mistake by not including clear instructions with your product, and I bet you've learned a lesson about that! It's a mistake that I'm sure lots of photogs before you have made and lots more after you. That's kind of why I'm replying to a month old post. This is common and you shouldn't feel like you got burned or disrespected by your client. You need to understand though, that you are indeed selling a product and you need to provide it with instructions. You shouldn't feel entitled to displayed credit in the form of watermarks or social media tags for paid work. You're charging a company money for a product that promotes their company, but you expect them to promote your company for you for free? They might offer you the courtesy, but don't expect it. Your client is trying to sell their product not yours. The reason you're getting paid is because you have a good product that is usable. When you start forcing your clients to tag you and all that stuff, you're adding a distracting message to their advertising and making your product less usable. That's bad news for them and you.

So how do you get exposure if they don't tag you or promote you?. You do good work, you give them a good product they can use to promote their business not yours. It's what they are paying you for. If you want credit and exposure then YOU promote your product by promoting their product. You plaster your social media and with the great shots you got over at XX brand dog food, what a great dog food, love these people, tag them, tag everyone you know that has a dog. Push it. For everything you do. Every commercial shoot you do that you can. If next week you are out shooting a restaurant or some other small business, push that on your own social media. Expand your social media. Because this is what happens, you give clients a good product that they can use and you don't pull attention away from their social media push, and you actually help your clients out by helping yourself. If they are happy, they will talk about you to their vendors maybe, or at small business associations. Word will get around. They will have good things to say. You put the campaign in your portfolio, add some more, and when you go looking for work, you've got clients with good things to say about you that will come back to you in the future because they know you deliver.

That's my opinion anyways. I hope you get to shoot more with them and that both your businesses grow.