You capture beautiful images, you truly do! Sometimes, however, it feels like the only person who sees them is your mom. If you own a photography business, this can be extremely frustrating, as you need to reach an audience of more than a few in order to book clients.
Social media is a fantastic way to reach a new, broader audience, but it’s tricky to navigate all the different platforms and build a community in the world of social media. Let me help you figure out how to spend your time wisely on the methods that will get the most eyes on your images.
So many platforms, so little time.
You can’t rock every platform every single day. Where does your ideal client spend her time? Facebook? Instagram? Talk to your friends and established clients to find out the platform they prefer. If you focus on one platform at a time, you can build a stronger community.
Not all platforms are created equal. What works for you on Facebook won’t work so well on Pinterest or Instagram. There are some practices, however, that apply to all of them.
In your Facebook page’s Profile or About section, you shouldn’t link to your website homepage. Why? Let’s be honest, sometimes your best work isn’t your latest blog post. That’s all right, only natural. But you don’t want a first-time visitor seeing anything but your very best, most representative work.
Instead, link from those sections to your own About page or your website’s call-to-action page. Your About page gives viewers a feel for who you are and what you have to offer. On a call-to-action page on your site, you motivate visitors to interact with you further; you invite them to subscribe to your newsletter, leave a comment, or shoot you an email.
Facebook:
Facebook is like a bad boyfriend: He doesn’t treat you right but you can’t help sticking around, hoping. Look at it another way. Facebook is a business. Businesses need to make money. Facebook keeps changing things up in order to convince you to pay for your community to see your posts, so it can be a challenge to get your posts seen organically. Why stick around? Because that’s where our clients hang out. Despite its fluctuating algorithms, you can make Facebook work for you. Facebook is my No.1 source of traffic to my site, and, yes, it is a constant challenge for me. Here’s how I do it:
Post at least once a day.
Ignore Facebook for too long and it will kill your reach (the number of people it lets in on your posts). Be sweet to Facebook daily, and it will be sweet to your reach. Keep your status short. People scroll through Facebook quickly, so your words must be precise. Think fewer than 160 characters.
Engage your community.
Treat social media like a friend at a cocktail party. If you talk only about yourself, the friend will move on. Don’t you avoid the people who are always on about me, me, me?
Follow the rule of 80/20.
Eighty percent of the time, provide value, ask questions, fill in the blanks, get advice, use inspirational quotes, make the friend feel needed. Use the remaining 20 percent to talk about yourself and your sessions.
Instagram:
One of my friends calls Instagram (IG) “The Wild West.” Seems anyone can escalate from 100 to 10,000 followers overnight. Right. But like Facebook, you need to spend time on the IG platform. Photographers have a massive advantage in growing IG followers — our “feeds” are pretty because we know how to take amazing shots. IG is all about beautiful images, and we can keep it that way. Here’s how to grow on IG:
Who cares?
Before you post an image, ask yourself, Will someone who doesn’t know me or the subject care about this image? Take off the mommy goggles. I’m not saying not to post images of your kids, just make sure they look appealing and the image quality is excellent.
Use hashtags.
Honestly, I still struggle with this. If unsure what hashtag to use, look at the bigger presences on IG who do something similar and see what hashtags they use.
Join challenges.
Every Sunday, #cmglimpse gives photo prompts for the week. Find a month of photo prompts from #thebethadillychallenge at her website, bethadilly.com. In February, I host #28lovelydays to challenge you to photograph something you love each day. For a long-term project, #100happydays challenges you to photograph something that makes you happy each day for 100 days. Thousands of photographers join in each of these challenges. Follow the prompt, hashtag your image, then head over to the hashtag and like and comment on images that appeal to you.
Visit your Following tab.
See what your friends are liking and who they’re following. View those images yourself, like them, comment on them. Perhaps that person will start following you.
Pinterest:
Pinterest is the platform that seems to do all the work for you. Set up your site to be Pinterest friendly, pin up some of your work, and boom! Sit back and watch the page views come in. Here’s how to be seen on Pinterest:
Place a Pin it button on your site.
I’m one of many who won’t pin an image from a site that doesn’t have this button. When the button’s present, it’s as if the site owner is saying yes, please pin my work.
Create a board and pin your own work, then later pin them to another board.
Saturday morning is the best time for pinning.
Use keywords in your board titles.
People use Pinterest like Google these days, so think SEO and title your boards to get them found.
Don’t be bullied by social media! It isn’t all that intimidating, I promise. Schedule time every day to build your community, even if it’s only 20 minutes. Every little bit counts. If you take away nothing else from this article, remember this: provide value and be consistent!
