ONE : INTRODUCTION
Can your photography business survive and thrive without using shared media? The answer is yes, in fact I encourage this; however, social media lets you interact with followers and share your personality and your brand in ways that other types of media simply do not. Many potential clients might also prefer to follow you on a social media platform for a time before investigating your work further.
Itʼs a great tool for bringing in awareness. Part of this is simply the fact that these platforms have large audiences inherently built in. Facebook has more than two billion daily users, Instagram has hundreds of millions of users a day, and YouTube is the sec- ond largest search engine in the world. By showing up on some of these platforms and entertaining, inspiring, or informing your potential audience, youʼre able to attract and bring in more customers.
The problem is that many photographers are not using social media strategically. They either post only about themselves and their businesses, instead of making their posts client-centric, or theyʼre posting a mash-up of content thatʼs not relevant to their prospects. Without a clear strategy behind your social media, your posts can create confusion for prospective clients. Remember: a confused mind always says no. So, letʼs talk about how to get strategic about your social media presences so that prospects are ready to say an emphatic
yes to working with you.
Using Social Media For Photographers
SOCIAL MEDIA TWO : CREATING A SOLID SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
Strategy encompasses the why for being on social media, who you are targeting, the overarching what of your message, and how you will convey all of this. With a solid social media strategy, you will have a customer-centric focus to everything you do. If you know your target customer has moved on from Instagram to Pinterest, youʼll know to invest your energies in testing that platform. If you know your ideal customer like the back of your hand, youʼll be able to research a few great hashtags that will help you get noticed in relevant Instagram feeds.
WHERE TO POST
Thereʼs a lot of pressure in the online marketing world to be everywhere at once, especially on social media. If youʼre not on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, 500px, and the newest app that just popped up, youʼre losing out on sales, right? The answer is only “yes” if your ideal client is the kind of person that needs you to be present on every single social media channel. If weʼre being honest, the likelihood of that is very slim.
Most of us have a few favorite channels we check in with throughout the day, and we leave the rest.
Think about your ideal client and where they spend the most time online. If they are a mom, theyʼre likely a heavy Facebook or Instagram user. If they are a bride-to-be, maybe theyʼre Pinning away on Pinterest on their lunch break. Just by creating an avatar for the kind of client you want to work with in your business, you can cut down on the clutter of social media and focus on a few key platforms.
Before you decide on the platform(s) you will use, ask yourself the following questions:
1. Is my audience or ideal client here?
2. If so, how are they using this social media channel?
3. Can I use this channel to help me achieve meaningful business goals (i.e. create awareness and interest around my offerings or drive traffic to my website)?
4. Then determine your objective – ask yourself, why are you on social media?
Sometimes social media feels like a popularity contest to a lot of creatives. They focus on how many likes, comments, or shares their recent post got. But if those likes are not coming from people who align with their ideal customer, then the metrics that come with them donʼt matter. Instead, think about what social media can help your photography business achieve. Once you understand what your overall purpose for being on social media is, and you know who your ideal customer is, you need not worry about whatʼs popular or trending on social media. Now itʼs more important to think about what your marketing goals are and how they translate into your objectives.
Your goals also need to align with the S.M.A.R.T goals framework by being:
• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-bound
Making sure all of your social media goals fall within this framework helps keep you accountable to your businessʼ bottom line.
Ask yourself what your goals will be and what metrics you will want to track through social media. Keep in mind, many brands use social media to help increase awareness and interest. Thatʼs because social media is not an intent-based channel. Most people are on social media for three things: education, inspiration, and connec- tion. They arenʼt shopping on social media. So, while not impossible, it is more difficult to generate leads and bookings directly with social media.
SOCIAL MEDIA THREE : METRICS (MEASURING EFFECTIVENESS)
If you use social media for awareness and interest, hereʼs an example objective and goal you might set for your business:
My objective for being on social media is to connect with potential customers and inspire them with beautiful photography. To achieve this, my goal is to grow my audi- ence by 500 followers this month. I will also study which posts get the most engage- ment and look for similar content to continue inspiring and growing my audience.
With this in mind, there are several social media metrics that photographers should think about. The various metrics we will want to measure fall into Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action. Remember: likes, comments, and shares are wonderful, but unless they are tied to helping prospective customers move closer to the Decision and Action phases, they are just vanity metrics.
Hereʼs a quick snapshot of some metrics you can measure during each phase:
• Awareness Brand
o Audience growth
o Post reach
• Interest
o Engagement rate (likes, comments, shares)
• Decision o Website click-through rate
• Action o Conversions (often, a contact form fill)
o Conversion rate
Ask yourself what your overall objective is with social media, what goals you will set, and what metrics you can use to measure the success of each.
As you craft and launch your new social media strategy, itʼs important to keep tracking to see what is working and whatʼs not. Re-evaluate your strategy regularly to see what works best and what tactics you can cut. With regular assessment and course correction, you will find that strategic use of social media can be a powerful tool to grow your business.
In the coming blog posts we will look at some of the biggest social media platforms available today.
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