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Social media is a fantastic business tool for photographers and videographers with lots of potential for increasing our profitability. Here are some photography business tips for making engaging social media posts.
First off, you will need to find an audience. There are numerous ways to accomplish this that are discussed in other articles, so I will just say that organic growth is best. Followers such as friends, business partners, and clients will tend to make up your social media audience.
In order to keep your audience and move your social media followers to do something, you need to make engaging social media posts. Let’s look at a few social media tips for photographers.
Speak With Photos
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You’re a photographer, people think of images when thinking about you, so a top photography business tip is to use that to your advantage by speaking in images more than in words. You might even think about how you view other people’s social media posts, how often you actually look at the text under the image or video posted.
Much of social media is primarily image driven, meaning that it's the large picture being primarily noticed as opposed to the small text underneath. You may have crafted the perfect ad copy text, but if the follower doesn’t bother to read it, your post isn’t really doing any work for you.
Learning graphic design is a helpful photography business tip that can assist in this. Design your posted social media image to say in a few words what you want to get across in your entire post. If you’re successful, your followers will read the image and then be moved to read the entire post and possibly be motivated to take action.
All Original Content
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A major photography business tip for successfully using social media is to only use content you created. In other words, don’t download memes or someone else’s image or design to post on your business site, make the image yourself.
Again, you’re a photographer. Don’t weaken your brand by diluting your social media account with someone else’s work. This would apply to actual photographs as well as any graphic design post.
You can actually use your own images or video footage and your current post processing programs to add informative text to the images and video.
Learn More:
- How To Use Your Camera As a Webcam
- 5 Tips for More Professional-Looking Videos
- Teleprompters Buyers Guide for Beginner Videographers
Use Teleprompter for Video
Social media platforms also work with video in addition to still images. Instagram and Twitter allow for short video snippets and on Facebook or YouTube you are able to post longer videos including full length movies and seminars on your own YouTube channel or a blog page you run yourself..
It’s as important for video as it is for still images to present the best quality you can when posting on your brand for business purposes. If your video postings are more like a commercial or infomercial, incorporating a teleprompter into your social media video gear will help you make more engaging social media posts.
You probably will want to use a script, at least in outline form, in order to produce a more professional style video. Teleprompters let you use that script without all that looking down reading which comes across to social media followers as unprofessional.
Thankfully, it’s both easy and cost effective to use a modern teleprompter like the Ikan PT-Elite Pro for creating an engaging social media media post video with your current video shooting setup. Just add your camera and a tablet or large smartphone and you’ll be humming along in your video like Martha Stewart on PBS gushing over her latest thousand dollar cake knife.
Avoid Personal Posts
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To create more engaging social media posts for your photography business you will want to avoid diluting your brand with posts that are about your family, friends, pets, or lunch.
Admittedly, it’s a fine line to draw at times since so many of us are self employed photographers, either full time or part time. An important photography business tip in general is to have some separation between you as a person and you as a professional.
That’s what branding is all about. Make a name for your work and your art, let that be what people looking at your business social media pages are seeing as your brand and not last Tuesday’s brunch with your Aunt Edna in Kukamonga.
Share Customer Reviews
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When you’re shopping for a professional service or product for your own home or business, who will you trust more: a salesman or a real customer? Social media followers have the same thoughts about that, including you and your business.
If you have some happy customers, ask them for a testimonial that you can use on your web pages or social media accounts. If they let you take a video of them, even better. Be sure to get all the proper releases and don’t edit to change the intent of their review, both of those things will backfire and end up hurting your business unless you follow good business practices and ethics.
Social Media Success
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Social media success for professional photographers and videographers is measured by how many followers engage with your business after seeing the post. Include a call to action of some type and try out these social media photography business tips to make your efforts result in more engaging social media posts.
Learn More: