Social media marketing is a great technique for reaching new clients and establishing your photography career. Although it seems easy to gain followers and loyal fans on social media, the reality is quite different with the rise of intense competition in the photography industry.
Struggling to figure out the best approach to growing your social media following? Don’t worry. We’re here today to make your journey easy. In this blog, we’ll discuss some powerful social media marketing strategies that will help you build an effective community and get recognition from your target audience.
Why Social Media Is Crucial For The Success Of Your Photography Business
With the rise of influence of social media these days, it has become mandatory for photographers to have a strong online presence. The first thing people these days do before purchasing a photography service online is search for portfolios and check reviews. Work samples and the experience of past clients serve as social proof. This increases your credibility and visibility, which attracts new clients. Apart from this, social media plays some other important role that can expand your reach and influence.
Let’s explore a few reasons to understand why social media is necessary to grow your photography business.
Great Platform for Building Portfolios
The first question customers ask a photographer is, ‘What kind of photography do you do?’ Social media makes it easy for you to answer this question with visual proof. You may have a great portfolio on your website. But all customers may not prefer to check out your website when they have easy access to the portfolios of your competitors on social media.
You can regularly share your work on different social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook or Pinterest. Customers can quickly browse through your projects to get an idea of your photography style and expertise. You can also share client testimonials and real-time updates with your audience to provide them with an interactive experience. And the best part is your potential client can land on your profile even without searching for you and become interested in working with you.
Ideal Source of Reaching a Wider Audience
Social media does not have regional boundaries like traditional marketing techniques. You can utilise the opportunity of engaging with users from different regions inside as well as outside your country through marketing on social media. Your potential customers can learn about you and your work from your profile. This free exposure to the target audience is only possible through social media.
The exposure to a wider audience helps you build followers who love to see your work, take inspiration from you, recommend you to their family and friends and do many more. Imagine someone landed on your profile, checked out your work and messaged you for more information or to book an appointment. Isn’t that fascinating?
Powerful Networking Tool
You need to have a strong network with industry professionals, popular photographers and potential collaborators to thrive in the photography business. Different types of events, workshops and social gatherings are now mostly arranged through social media, as it is a convenient way to spread word without any hassle.
You can join these programs to strengthen your professional network. You can be informed about the latest trends and techniques in the photography industry, which is necessary to improve your skills and outperform your competitors.
What Are The Best Social Sites For Photographers?
There are numerous social media platforms where your target audience may vary depending on their age, interest and content preferences. You need to choose the best social sites to maximise your reach and get seen by the right people.
The following are the most popular platforms you can try to establish your digital identity and grow your business.
Instagram is considered one of the best platforms for developing a visually appealing portfolio. This platform supports only visual content such as photos and videos through stories, reels or posts. You can create engaging content on the photography tutorials, a glimpse of your work or behind-the-scenes.
Tiktok
Tiktok is trending these days for short video content. This is an ideal site for photographers to present their work through fun and engaging short clips. Usually, the majority of users of this platform are young people. You can share tips on how to improve Shopify product photography skills or achieve the best results in a specific photography genre. These types of content attract users easily and help build a large number of followers.
Facebook is another best and versatile platform to make the target audience engage with a variety of content types and build large communities. You can create business pages, events or organise workshops to help you reach potential customers. You can share your work through videos, reels and still photographs. This way clients can see your work quality and book your service.
LinkedIn is a platform for professionals such as business owners, brand managers and marketing teams. You can use this social media platform to establish your industry authority. Sharing information about your service, digital portfolio and work sample can help you with networking. It is one of the most effective sites to get commercial deals.
Social media users prefer to use Pinterest to explore photography ideas and plan creative projects. This platform can help you drive traffic to your website. Users often search for specific styles or concepts on Pinterest. You can design your account with thematic photoshoots, event photographs, product images or curated boards. Strategic use of keywords, hashtags and descriptions will make discovering your content easy. This way you can reach your target audience and attract potential clients.
500px
Social media is not just for finding clients. You can use the site 500px to enhance your photography skills through building connections with other professional photographers and photography enthusiasts. You can share your work and get constructive feedback from them. You can also gain inspiration from other photographers and explore various photography genres.
Flickr
Flickr is another popular platform for the photographer community. You can also use this platform to build a network with professional photographers, arrange an organised portfolio and establish your individual identity as a professional photographer.
Social Media Marketing Strategies For Photographers
Let’s explore 9 social media marketing strategies for photographers that are proven to help you stand out and engage your audience effectively.
Determine the Goals Behind Your Social Presence
What is your purpose for establishing a digital identity? Is it creating brand identity, increasing traffic to your website, building community or reaching potential customers?
No matter what your goal is, deciding on a clear purpose should be your first step. Your target audience, content, social platform and marketing style will vary depending on your goals. So, make sure to select the goal that aligns with your business needs.
Be Active In the Relevant Online Communities
Social media is all about engaging with others through likes, comments and sharing posts. You can join groups, use hashtags or search for industry professionals to build connections with the community. Interacting with like-minded individuals and photographers will help you upgrade your photography skills.
Moreover, active participation in the online communities can help increase your authenticity. You will get the opportunity to interact with your potential target audience and build your own fan base as well.
Produce Quality Content To Stay Relevant
Social media users love to see visually engaging, unique and high-quality content that provides them value. You can make your content relevant to the audience by sticking to the current trend. This will increase the shareability of the content and boost the engagement in the post.
However, you need to use professionally edited photographs to make them look high-quality. Thinking about the cost? Don’t worry. Professional image retouching services from Masking Aid won’t create a hole in your pocket. They offer a wide range of photo editing services at an affordable rate to make photo retouching accessible to businesses of all sizes.
Interact and Engage To Grow Your Brand Organically
Although you can grow followers through boosting and paid promotion, it is best to gain them organically for long-term benefit. You should reply to comments, answer queries, have conversations with followers through messages or ask for feedback to interact with them. This active engagement will motivate the audience to communicate with you and build strong relationships. You can get new clients through word-of-mouth referrals too.
Use Trending Hashtags and Topics to Fit Current Happenings
One of the most effective ways to reach the target audience is to create content on current events and use hashtags. The use of a hash (#) sign before a word or groups of words without any space makes it a specific category. When the audience searches for specific hashtags, they will see all of the content that uses those hashtags. Keywords that your target audience might use to search for the kind of content you post can be used as hashtags.
Utilise A Scheduling Tool For Effective Promotion
Maintaining consistency in creating and uploading posts on social media regularly can be challenging. You may have work on some days during your posting time or you may forget to publish content amid a busy work schedule. You can use scheduling tools such as CoSchedule, Planable or Zoho Social to stay consistent with your social media activities. You can upload your content and schedule the time. These apps will publish the content automatically.
Embrace Your Brand to Stay Consistent
In the photography business, your brand is your identity. You can make your brand popular through social media content. Funny behind the scenes, photography style, editing process or other activities related to your photography business can be shared as content for marketing on social media. These types of content can be quite effective at making your brand popular among the audience.
Promote Content Cross Platform
Your target audience is present on almost all social media sites. Limiting your social media appearance within one or two platforms can reduce your chances of reaching a broader audience. You can link your Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and other social media accounts to each other. You can share similar content on all these platforms or create individual posts. Cross platform content promotion helps to make the content visible to a lot of new viewers and increase the reach of the content.
Try Paid Social Media Ads
Although organic reach is considered ideal practice, this is the most time-consuming technique. One alternative to quickly reaching your potential customers is paid advertising. You can create targeted ads on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other sites to reach the right audience. For effective results, make sure to create ads based on your goals.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is the Best Time for Photographers to Post on Social Media?
The best time to post on social media can vary depending on your target audience, platforms and their engagement patterns. Although the perfect time is not the same for all the platforms, there are some common timings during the weekdays and weekends that you can consider ideal for sharing posts. Usually, posting within 9 am and 12 pm on Monday to Thursday can help you achieve higher engagement. However, on Saturday and Sunday, you should try to post around 7 am to 9 am.
How Can You Promote Yourself as a Photographer?
A strong portfolio is the key to promoting yourself as a photographer. Apart from the portfolio, you need to create a network within the industry and collaborate with other creatives to establish a strong online presence. You can attend events, workshops and photography meetups to connect with fellow photographers and potential clients. Social media platforms also offer paid targeted ads to reach specific audiences and promote businesses.
Conclusion
There is no alternative to using effective social media marketing strategies if you want to establish a successful photography career in today’s world. Although it can be quite difficult to manage multiple social platforms beside your photography projects, you can start with at least one or two popular sites and expand your reach to other sites with time.
Hopefully, the strategies we have discussed so far will help you get started with the social media marketing journey. Don’t worry if it takes longer to show your expected results. All you need is to have patience and do your part with dedication.
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About the Author: Jonathan Bird
