In this months social media guide we are capturing a close up of the world of Photography. Photography is one of the most diverse industries there is, and expressing your thoughts and ideas through a camera lens is truly a unique art form. Enjoy our guide on how to do social media for photographers!
Photographers are known professionals on capturing content, but sometimes it can feel confusing how you want people to see your work. Representing yourself as a brand on social media can be tricky at times so in this month’s Giraffe Social Media Guide we focus on the ways you can capture the social media game and snap up your audience’s attention!
Choose your networks wisely.
There is a flurry of different social media networks nowadays and where you choose to showcase your work is important in attracting new clients, engaging with your audience and ensuring that you represent your brand in the best ways possible.
Instagram is the ultimate social network when it comes to targeting a younger demographic. More than half of its users are between the ages of 18-34, making Instagram one of the top runners when it comes to keeping your content young. For this social network, it’s all about the imagery.
For photographers, Instagram is a great platform to use! You can showcase your portfolio work, interact with potential clients, share their content and link your work to a website or other network for people to easily access your services.
The content that you can create on Instagram is endless and it’s an awesome platform that allows creative freedom and flexibility.
As one of the OG social media networks, Facebook is still ruling over the digital space with over 2.7 billion users worldwide. This platform is definitely best with connecting to an older generation of users and generating both visual and text-based content.
A lot of photographers use Facebook to access a wider network of people, manage their community and engage with their audience on a more personal level. Building up your reputation on this platform can be tricky, but it will definitely open up your market to a larger following and give you the opportunity to advertise your photography on a social media platform built for engagement.
Pinterest is the visual melting pot of social media. Perfect for creating mood boards, planning shoots, finding new ideas and sharing your content with ease. It’s a great platform for a photographer who is looking for some inspiration or who wants to share some of their own tips and tricks! It allows people to easily access your portfolio or website and some photographers are reporting that almost 50% of their online traffic is coming from Pinterest.
Travel photography is one of the highest-ranking topics on Pinterest, so sharing content on here can generate some great click-through rates to your website, portfolio or other social accounts.
Behance
If you’re someone who uses Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom to edit your photos, Behance is definitely a great platform to be on. It’s an online showcase of work from photographers, designers, illustrators and artists.
It gives you the ability to create ‘projects’ and put together collections for people to view your work with ease. It also offers you a careers section where people post available jobs online for creatives. This can open up a whole new network of customers and potential people to partner with.
Choosing which platforms you want to showcase what you have to offer your customer base is an important step in how you can succeed in social media as a photographer. It’s important to consider how you want to represent yourself as well as what type of content you want to produce for each of your relevant platforms.
Choose Your Niche
When considering what your social media will look like and beginning to create the posts, one important step is to decide what your niche is as a photographer. Every photographer has their own preferable style that they choose to produce, and not everyone will be an expert in every style.
Whether it’s wedding photography, nature shots, portraits or family photoshoots, ensuring you show off your expertise will attract the correct clients and potential brands to partner with.
Once you have chosen your style of focus, you can begin to build the type of content you want to share! Some portfolio work, inspiration for shoots and tips and tricks can all form part of curating your social media presence and representing yourself best as a photographer across each platform.
A few examples of photographers who have taken their unique style to a whole new level are the following:
The Wild Bride
This photography duo specialises in capturing the special moments between couples. They have an amazing way of showcasing their awesome images and creating everlasting moments. They’ve built a reputation by celebrating the beauty of genuine human connections and capturing those candid and special moments in time. Their social media page really showcases how simple and effective it can be to just showcase your work!
Akihito Nagata
A black and white photographer, Akihito focuses their entire social media on showcasing monochromatic imagery that captures the simplicity of how we see the world around us. They have definitely taken their creative niche to a whole new level and have opened up a new way of looking at the world for their followers to enjoy. Their social media has shown how simple it can be to showcase photography, whilst still focusing on an individual niche and style.
Breakfast & Bowls
This food photographer really takes her imagery to new heights and makes her social media presence pop with the array of colours and style that she uses within each of her photos. Keeping it all food-focused and giving her audience a hankering for a cupcake or two! Breakfast & Bowls definitely has us wanting to see even more!
Each of these photographers have truly fine-tuned and focused on what their style of content is that they want to create. And in turn, have created a specific audience that their work is aimed at and a customer base that they know will want to work with them.
Add a personal touch
As important as it is to create your own niche and showcase your work, adding in your own personal touch will make your social media more relatable and people will be intrigued to know the person behind the camera!
An Instagram reel on behind the scenes of a shoot day is one way that you can elevate your social media and create a personalised experience for your audience. Taking them along for a typical day in your life will make you that much more relatable and will add that extra little personal touch that may have people wanting you to be the one to capture their moments in time!
Try to keep to the 80/20 rule when considering this. 80% of your photos should be focused on your photography and practice and 20% could be a bit more personal and behind the scenes.
Use hashtags
Hashtags are a great way to expand your reach across social media platforms as well as to find accounts that you as a photographer want to connect with. Use specific, popular and appropriate hashtags to boost your exposure.
You can hashtag the location, subject, client, brand, business, or even the equipment that you are using and could also create a hashtag that’s unique to you and your photography in order to create even more of a niche identity for yourself.
There is no rule on what hashtags to use, but keep in mind that you can currently include only up to 30 on one post. Take the quality over quantity approach and make sure they are relevant and specific to your photo and the audience you want to reach.
Find Instagram hubs
An Instagram hub is an account that curate’s and share’s other users’ images, similar to an online gallery. They generally share images related to a specific genre or subject matter, which can be anything from a colour scheme to a photography style.
Find them, follow them and use any relevant hashtags to tag them in order to reach a wider audience. Try to get featured on the page itself, doing so will allow you to attract relevant followers and help to increase exposure to your photography social media.
Collaborate where possible!
Collaborating with other photographers and brands alike is an important step in growing your social media presence even further. It won’t only give you exposure to a larger audience of people but it will also allow you to build lasting relationships and connections with brands that have similar goals in mind as well as increasing the awareness of you and your services to those connected to the brand itself.
Reaching out to brands that you feel have the same values as you and who represent a similar message can be very beneficial. Collaborating on giveaways, working together on projects or even offering your services in exchange for exposure on their page are a few ways in which you can partner up with these brands to create content and expand both of your followings.
Engage with your audience
Keeping up engagement with your audience is important for any brand to be successful. Showing your customers that you are actively interested in their feedback, thoughts and opinions of your product offering will create strong brand loyalty amongst consumers and in turn, allow for your brand to skyrocket into success.
Actively seeking out people who you want to photograph and work with will help to improve your community engagement. Interacting on their posts, commenting, liking, sharing images that you see fit to your style of photography and making sure that you engage with brands that you actively want to work with are all ways in which you can create a dedicated clientele.
Through engaging with your audience and creating a strong brand voice through your own content, your photography social media should become a raging success and help to create a strong community and a loyal customer base.
Looking for a little assistance in kickstarting your social media? Why not get in touch with our awesome team at Giraffe today! We’re the social media specialists and would love to be able to help get your social media for your photography snapping up some clients!
