Indeed, the Internet is a noisy place. In fact, itʼs the noisiest itʼs ever been. As of 2020, Instagram has over 1 BILLION monthly active users who use the app an average of 28 minutes per day. Facebook reports over 2.2 BILLION monthly active users. And those numbers are growing.
With so much content being posted, is it even possible to get noticed anymore?
Thankfully, it absolutely is.
Not only that, but what if I told you that itʼs possible to build a loyal following, meet tons of other creative individuals just like you, and even find paying clients without spending a dime on advertising?
With a proper strategy, all of that is achievable.
But if youʼre like most photographers, you might not know where to start. Where do you find people? Whatʼs the best way to engage them? Which “hashtags” should you use?
Hereʼs what youʼll learn today to help you cultivate an audience for your photographic work:
· Why creating value is absolutely necessary
· The power of Facebook groups
· How to optimize your Instagram hashtag strategies to build an audience
Ready to start growing your tribe? Letʼs get to it.
Note:
For any Internet newbies out there, a “tribe” is your followers.
A “hashtag” is an Internet device used to “direct” your posts toward a potential audience.
Letʼs set the record straight.
In order to attract an audience, you absolutely MUST have good content. If youʼre not creating value in your content, youʼre missing the most important ingredient to developing an audience.
Itʼs like trying to make banana bread without bananas. It just wonʼt work. However, posting solid, properly exposed, well-composed images just isnʼt enough these days.
You need to ensure that people are taking away something whenever they view your work.
The best way to make that happen is to use a caption.
Here are a few ways to do it:
Share Your Camera Settings Within The Caption – Your audience most likely consists of a good percentage of people who are photographers themselves. If youʼre sharing a killer image, then thereʼs a great chance that someone out there will be curious about the settings you used to get the shot. Sharing your lens selection and camera settings are a great way to help others out. (Youʼre adding value.)
2. Tell A Story – How often do you scroll past images on Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, or
500px that have one-word captions? Boring, right? Too many people take their caption
space for granted. Instead of using the same words and phrases that other people are
using, why not tell a story instead? Engage your audience by sharing something
interesting or funny that relates to the photograph somehow. Talk about how you
almost got kicked out of the place you were shooting at, or your thought process
behind the shot. People love stories, so why not indulge them? (Youʼre adding value.)
3. Share A Helpful Tool or Tactic -- I recently educated my “tribe” (my audience) about the
importance of color coordinating my photography website as it makes viewing easier
for the visitors to my site and often leads to additional sales. I also pointed out that my
own Instagram feed is color coordinated for the most part.
Sharing a helpful (and especially FREE) tool that people could use immediately undoubtedly played a huge part in why that post performed so well.
Key Lesson: When mentioning any helpful resources that you use, why not see if “said resource” is on Instagram, and then tag them in your post? Sometimes brands will repost your image when you do that, which will serve your content up to an entirely new audience who otherwise wouldnʼt have discovered you.
THE POWER OF FLICKR GROUPS
Letʼs talk about Flickr groups.
Thereʼs a Flickr group for virtually anything and everything now. Just now, I thought of three completely random niches off the top of my head: Dallas photographers, wedding photographers, and nature photographers. Sure enough, thereʼs more than one group for each of them.
Since I've been a member, being active in Flickr groups has been a major contributor to my growth as a photographer and I've experienced growth in my business. Do know, I've been an active Flickr user since 2004.
As a result, Iʼve landed a book deal, paid photography opportunities, and I have networked with hundreds of like-minded creatives.
Just recently, I was in Venice Italy and I called up a friend whom I met in a Flickr group.
We got together for dinner and she showed me around Venice and took me out on her boat. It was awesome. But, just joining random Flickr groups and spamming them with your photography isnʼt a good strategy. Be active. Be supportive of others. Share your ideas.
Here are four best practice tips for using Flickr groups to your advantage:
DIVERSIFY YOUR COMMUNITIES
When choosing which groups to join, consider the different niches that might exist. For example, let's say you live in Wilmington, North Carolina, and you shoot with Fuji and Sony. You also specialize in portrait and editorial-style photography.
Letʼs think of a few groups we could research given those characteristics:
· Wilmington photographers
· North Carolina photographers
· Fuji shooters
· Sony shooters
· Portrait photographers
· Fashion/editorial photography
· Fuji portrait photography
· Sony portrait photography
Are you seeing the possibilities here?
Key Lesson: Make sure you join at least two or three local groups to maximize the chances of picking up work in your area. Youʼre much more likely to get hired by someone if youʼre local.
APPROACH WITH THE MINDSET OF GIVING VALUE.
Itʼs best not to jump into a group and share links to your website right away.
Instead, use the same strategy as you would for your Instagram, Flickr, or 500px posts. Leverage your caption space to share camera settings, your creative process, or the story behind the photo you took.
Whenever you post something, ask yourself, “Would anyone find this post helpful or inspiring?”
Donʼt put too much pressure on yourself, though; not every post you create is going to be earth shattering or profound. Just aim to create value whenever you contribute.
INTERACT WITH MEMBERS
Being a part of a community is about so much more than sharing your own work and expecting everyone to grovel at your feet.
Get to know the other creatives. You could very well be inspired by other members of the group. Feedback is invaluable. If someone posts a question that you can answer, help them out.
Also, itʼs CRUCIAL to reply to comments on your posts. Take the time to thank people who compliment your work. Remember, a little effort goes a long way.
GIVE PEOPLE A CALL-TO-ACTION
You want to be careful with this recommendation, as some Flickr groups specifically state that you arenʼt allowed to share links. But for those that do allow it, leaving your website URL or social media handle as part of your “signature” (at the bottom of the posts you make) can be a great way to get new site traffic and followers.
Important Note: Make sure youʼve contributed enough value into the group before giving a call to action.
If your posts consistently get good engagement through likes and positive comments, youʼre on the right track.
HOW TO OPTIMIZE YOUR INSTAGRAM HASHTAG STRATEGIES
Thereʼs a lot of speculation about the Instagram algorithm. What factors affect your reach with a post to the site? In my personal experience, following these three strategies will help ensure you have healthy engagement from your followers.
KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE Who are you trying to reach? Knowing your target demographic is crucial to successfully increasing your reach, engagement, and conversions (whether thatʼs someone who wants to book you for a photo shoot, pay you for a promoted post, or even sending you free swag).
The biggest mistake that most people make on Instagram is not having any idea who they want to attract, so they just throw a bunch of hashtags together and hope for the best. (Does this sound like you? If so, donʼt feel bad. I was guilty of this too.)
Note: For the Instagram newbies, a hashtag looks like this #. You place this symbol in front of a word or phrase. Here is an example: #portraitphotography.
Anyone using Instagram who has an interest in portrait photography would click on the search window and type: #portraitphotography.
This would bring up all of the portrait photography posts that were hashtagged with #portraitphotography (including yours). One other way that an Instagram user can access a hashtag is by simply clicking on it within a post. They may have never heard of you, click on #portraitphotography in a completely random post, and when they arrive at the destination page they may see your hashtagged image. Boom! Perhaps you have a new follower.
Think about the kind of photography you do and the value you create. Whoʼs your customer? Is it newly engaged couples looking for wedding photographers? Or actors and actresses looking for updated headshots? Or fine art poster publishers looking for new content?
Make sure youʼre targeting your hashtags toward your specific niche and the audience within it.
2. DIVERSIFY YOUR PORTFOLIO Many photographers are guilty of only using super
generic hashtags that have well over a million posts. The outcome of that practice is
that their images are quickly buried by following posts. Someone who browses those
hashtags wonʼt see them because they are way down in the feed, giving them
practically no discoverability.
Think of hashtags as a mutual fund. (If you know nothing about mutual funds, just bear with me, as this is an easy analogy.)
You want to diversify your chances of being discovered by choosing a mix of “popular” hashtags and “niche” hashtags. If you only use super popular hashtags or super niche hashtags, you probably wonʼt see much growth. Letʼs use myself as an example.
Iʼm a travel photographer, blogger, and marketing strategist. I help photographers grow their online presence and create a side income for themselves.
Hereʼs a look at the hashtags I used for a recent well- performing post:
Notice that I used a mixture of popular hashtags (#dowhatyoulove, #inspiredaily, #liveyourpassion) as well as niche hashtags (#travel, #professionalphotographer, #photographybusiness) and localized hashtags (#london, #londonphotographer, #londonnightphotographer).
Rather than just “swinging for the fences,” use a variety of hashtags, of varying popularity, to maximize your discoverability to potential followers.
3. Mix It Up This is a point that I mentioned in a post last week. Instagram wants users
to find exactly the content theyʼre looking for when they click on a hashtag. So, it
doesnʼt help at all to use a popular hashtag if itʼs not relevant to the content that youʼre
posting.
Many photographers use the same copied and pasted hashtags over and over in their posts, but you should avoid that.
Some people have reported that by doing so, it has resulted in their posts being “shadow-banned” by Instagram. This means the reach of your post is severely restricted, and in some cases not seen at all.
Whether shadow-banning is a thing or not (because no one knows for sure at this point), itʼs a good idea to mix up your hashtags so that theyʼre relevant to the image youʼre posting.
Remember: Good content + specific audience + relevant hashtags = success.
CONCLUSION
Creating good content isnʼt enough. In order to build an audience, you need a clear strategy of who you want to reach and how youʼll deliver value to them when you post online.
Once you have this strategy in place, share your work, and in the process help others as much as possible – good things will happen as a result.
Self-Check Quiz:
True or False: You need to have good content in order to build an audience.
Name three ways you can engage your audience in your post caption.
True or False: You have to pay for ads to reach anyone on Flickr.
What are the four best practice tips to follow when participating in Flickr groups?
True or False: You should use only the most popular hashtags.
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