Social media in the photography market is full of photos of crazy experiences, beautiful landscapes and remarkable sunsets. So, how do you stand out and build your following?
I have put together three tips that will help you build a targeted audience as well as create a sense of community for your existing following.
Tip One – Share lots and lots of content
If you want to start building your social media following, you need to think about how you’re going to hook their attention. The goal is for people to visit your social media pages and find it interesting enough to want to stick around and hit that follow button. To do so, you should post regularly at times when your audience is most active. A general rule to follow when posting content is to ensure a third of what is posted is from third parties. This can be anything from tips and tricks for your followers to be able to learn from and share, or the latest industry news that would interest both your current social media following and the audience you are trying to attract.
If you work in the photography industry, you have the opportunity of sharing beautiful images from talented photographers. Chances are that if you share an image, if the photographer is not already aware of your company, they will start researching your products or services as a result of sharing their content.
The majority of the time, photographers will be pleased to have their shots shared and will re-share the images on their social channels, which is a great way for you to build your social following. One thing to note before sharing photographers’ images is to ask for permission first, and credit them in the post.
Tip Two – Create a sense of community
Engage with your audience! Browse through your followers’ content and be reactive, comment and like relevant posts. If you see a great image, don’t be afraid to comment with “great photo, we love this!”. It shows that your account isn’t being run by robots and allows you to show some of your brand’s personality, which is key to building your social media following and presence. Another way to engage and create a sense of community, is through polls, where you can ask your audience what content they want to see more, and tailoring your content around those suggestions, through blogs or other media.
Hashtags are a great way of building your social media following. Again, being in the photography industry there are a large number of widely used hashtags such as #Photography, #LandscapePhotography and #POTD (photo of the day, in case you were wondering!) which you can join in with. You can research what hashtags the audience you want to target are using and start using these hashtags to join in the conversation if you weren’t looking for such a widely used hashtag.
Tip Three – Be credible
If you want to build brand loyalty, you need to be credible and the best way to do this is by having brand ambassadors! Brand ambassadors can be photographers that use your product or your service and are able to represent you as a brand. They can help in creating authentic content for your social media channels, whether this is through takeovers, Q&A sessions, sharing their knowledge and their photography with your followers or exclusive behind the scenes footage that is only available on your social media channels. This links well to tip two, as you can ask your followers what it is that they would like to know more about or find out from the brand ambassador.
Brand ambassadors will help your company’s exposure by sharing content on their social media channels, as well as by spreading the word that they like the product or service that you offer. On the flip side, you will offer a platform for your brand ambassador to share their photographs and talk about them. It is a win-win situation!
So, there you have it, three tips for how you can build your social media following in the photography market organically.
