Ready to up your social media game? Here’s how to use EVERY top social media platform: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and TikTok!
Best Social Media for Photographers
Social media marketing is so important for photographers in today’s fast-paced digital world. It can be difficult to find the time to implement different marketing strategies using your photos.
However, there are countless marketing opportunities for photographers at every level to grow their photography businesses. Let’s take a look at some of the biggest ways you can create the best social media strategy as a photographer.
Ella K. Photography
Instagram for Photographers
Instagram can be a great way to generate leads for photography businesses of all kinds. For consumer photographers like wedding professionals and family photographers, it’s especially important to use Instagram as a marketing tool. There is a lot of organic opportunity on the app for photography businesses to thrive and gain followers.
Regardless of how big or small your follower count is on Instagram, there is lots of room for success in your photo business. If you’re looking for the best social media for photographers in terms of platforms, Instagram is right up there in the top spot.
Instagram is the most popular platform for photographers to market their businesses. This is because it is a highly visual platform that puts the main emphasis on your photos. It’s easy for potential customers to engage with your brand on Instagram and see your beautiful visuals. So how can you use social media like Instagram to make an impact in your business?
Nicole Nero Studio
Piper Brown Photography
Add Hashtags
There are three essential tools Instagram provides that can help your photo business. The first tool that can make an impact is hashtags. You should be hashtagging your photos to get more exposure within your community. Using hashtags with your photos that are location-specific is great for building up a local following.
People who are searching photos on Instagram are going to be using specific hashtags. Instead of searching photos for #weddingphotographer, for example, it’s way more likely that they’re going to be looking into #brooklynweddingphotographer to see photo results that are more relevant to their interests.
The Meyer Photo + Video Group
Use Location Tags and Tag Collaborators
Location tags are another great way to get free exposure as a photographer on Instagram. Particularly those planning weddings and events will be searching location tags on Instagram to see how other people have used and captured their dream space in the past.
Make sure to tag the locations where you’ve taken photos. That way, potential customers can see how you would capture the event or shoot of their dreams in a location you’ve already photographed before.
Those who are seeking photographers on Instagram will not only check the grid feeds of photographers, they will also check tagged photos. Tag your collaborators and ask them to tag you as well. It gives you free real estate in their tagged photo feeds for even more people to potentially come across you.
Tara T. Photography
Coming up with Instagram Posts
If you’re not sure what to post on Instagram, there are plenty of opportunities for photographers. Thankfully, creatives already come prepared with visuals that are ready to go. All you have to do is think up some captions and post! Choose short and snappy captions based on the visuals that you are posting.
Make sure to consider your audience as well – if you are a family photographer, for example, it’s not likely that you’re going to use curse words in your captions. Think about who is going to be scrolling over those captions while they are browsing your images.
Photographers should use Instagram Stories as an additional social media marketing tool. Instagram Stories are found at the top of the app, and they are usually the first button users tap on when they open the app. This is prime real estate for your business. Your Story highlights receive a lot of attention on your profile as well, given that they are placed above your carefully curated Instagram grid.
Ella K. Photography
Should You Have a Separate Instagram Account?
Keeping a separate Instagram account for just your photography work may be good for your business. When it comes to social media channels for photographers, it’s important to make sure that your brand comes first.
Bringing your personality into your brand is important, but if you like to share lots of social media posts that don’t reflect your work, it may help to separate into two accounts.
Nicole Nero Studio
Finding Clients on Instagram
Instagram helps you find customers while also letting people locate your business. Engage with accounts that are in the same sphere as yours. Whether you are starting or are just looking to continue growing, leading people to your account will help you find followers.
There are lots of opportunities for consumer niches like wedding photography to grow with Instagram. Engaging with others on this platform is like using word of mouth, but digitally. People often look to popular social media channels to see whether businesses are still active before they inquire.
People may check your page and if you haven’t posted images in two weeks, they may think that you’re not working right now. Posting regularly on social media accounts like Instagram will also help to keep up your brand awareness by keeping you at the top of feeds.
Piper Brown Photography
The Meyer Photo + Video Group
Facebook for Photographers
This is a big platform for photographers. There has been a lot of debate on whether it is a “dead” social media marketing tool. However, it can be one of the best social spaces for professionals.
Sharing your portfolio on Facebook in multiple spaces can benefit you greatly. Facebook is one of the best social platforms for photographers to create meaningful community connections.
Creating a Page for your professional work can help to generate awareness. Invite your friends to “like” your page, and feature your work regularly. Building brand awareness can be a useful tool to keep at top of mind for those who are regular users of this social media platform.
Tara T. Photography
Connecting with Facebook Groups
Pages are not the only valuable space for photographers on the website. It has the unique capability to create Groups for your business. You can start a group for your potential clients to network and build community.
For example, if you are a family photographer, you can build a Group for customers as part of your social media strategy. Start a group for local moms in your area and offer exclusive discounts and sessions to your Group. This can create even more opportunity for digital word of mouth marketing for photographers.
Ella K. Photography
How Often Should Photographers Post on Facebook?
If you are running a Group for your photography page, it can be valuable to post or upload photos a few times per week. If you have a Page for your brand, once or twice per week should suffice.
You may be battling the algorithm quite a bit on the platform, so limiting posts will help them to show up and not feel overwhelming to audiences who follow and check your work.
Twitter for Photographers
Twitter is a good place to start if you love to combine words and images. That being said, there is a good bit of visual opportunity on Twitter to make an impact. For connecting with other professionals and building a niche client base, the website presents free social network opportunities for photographers.
The half-life of a tweet is about eight minutes, so regular Twitter posting leads to more engagement. For small businesses, this can be more difficult than the average popular profile.
Using scheduling apps to pre-schedule several tweets in advance can help you to come up with days worth of content ahead of time.
Show off some of your photos, then share some inspiration, then do a call-to-action for other photographers to share their work, and so on. Find unique ways to keep creating conversation a couple of times per day on Twitter.
Nicole Nero Studio
Building a Community on Twitter
This website can be valuable for photographers if community building is important to your business. There are plenty of other photographers that are using Twitter and creating meaningful connections on the platform. Using the app to boost your presence within a community of photographers is a great way to use this social media platform.
As opposed to Instagram, your focus can mainly be on building a connection with other professionals. That’s not to say that you can’t find photography clients on the platform – it’s just not as seamless as using a social media network that is more visual.
Piper Brown Photography
Finding Photography Clients on Twitter
Wedding photographers and consumer photographers overall can find customers using Twitter. It takes more involvement in your local Twitter community, however. Your focus on Twitter isn’t just about the visuals so you have to figure out what and how much of your personality and brand messaging you are comfortable sharing.
If you are a wedding photographer who wants to find local wedding customers on Twitter, for example, seeking out those in your local community who are talking about wedding planning, venues, etc., can lead to professional photography clients from this social media platform.
Keep your brand voice on Twitter as authentic and natural as you can. It’s a lot less common to see brands hashtagging their tweets these days. Unless they are creating a specific hashtag to build community or brand awareness, it’s not likely that a hashtag is being used. If you are using lots of hashtags in your tweets, it can come off as spammy-looking and inauthentic.
The Meyer Photo + Video Group
Pinterest for Photographers
One valuable resource for photographers is Pinterest. Pinterest is less of a social media platform and more of a search engine. However, for the sake of best online marketing practices, we’re including Pinterest as a social media platform. It is one that is specifically good for driving traffic to your site.
The best way to get photography work from the app is to create boards and posts that are centered around local content. If you are a consumer photographer, this is absolutely essential to generating success with Pinterest. This free platform can easily help you drive traffic to your website and build out your clientele.
If you have a blog post that pertains to a certain wedding venue as a wedding photographer, for example, pointing to that post from Pinterest can generate significant traffic that can convert to leads and followers.
Tara T. Photography
How to Use Pinterest SEO
When you share photos on Pinterest, make sure it is optimized for search. As opposed to most platforms where you are thoughtfully writing captions, Pinterest works on SEO. As you create and share pins, use pin descriptions to describe what is in the pin itself.
Don’t think up captions that are creative and vague; get straight to the point. If you share a pin that features a venue, for example, put the name of the venue, the location, and any details about it. Is it a rustic wedding venue? Add in details that are searchable and snappy!
Ella K. Photography
Posting Original Content to Pinterest
Pinterest favors original posts. Thankfully, the work of photographers is entirely original. An easy way to manage content is to share pins that relate to blog content, portfolio pages, and lead magnets. Keeping your posts fresh will make it more likely that Pinterest will share it in their greater algorithm!
Start by pinning anywhere from 10-30 times per day using scheduling tools can help to build up your portfolio and name on this unique platform. If you are creating regular blog content with lots of photos, this can easily translate into unique pins that lead to your site.
Piper Brown Photography
TikTok for Photographers
TikTok is a relatively new platform for photographers to get into. Everyone is still finding their footing and figuring out how content marketing on TikTok actually works. The TikTok algorithm is still a mystery to even the best social media marketers.
Going viral is still something that users on TikTok are trying to figure out. Try using different tags on TikTok to generate new views. Sharing helpful posts on TikTok will help you to gain more views.
An example of this would be creating a TikTok about the “best poses for photo shoots” as opposed to just saying “these are my best photos.” People love sharing free and easy tutorials. Adding value to the lives of others can help your name become popular on the platform.
The Meyer Photo + Video Group
Getting Photography Clients from TikTok
The target audience of TikTok leans more towards a Gen Z audience. If you deal with senior photography and niches that are geared at a younger audience, TikTok can be valuable to bring in followers. Keeping a consistent presence on TikTok will help to draw in more people to follow your work.
Another thing to keep in mind: TikTok may become one of the social media platforms for photographers. Eventually, Gen Z will get to the point where they’re looking for wedding photographers and family photographers. You have to meet your clients where they are.
There isn’t a right or wrong way for photographers to post on TikTok. The more you share posts, the more chances there are for your content to go viral. Keep on experimenting with what works for you as TikTok gains more active users.
Tara T. Photography
Vero Social
Unlike the other social media platforms mentioned above, you may not be as familiar with Vero Social. It’s a newer media platform, and it’s actually great for photographers!
Unlike social sites like Facebook and Instagram that compress your images when you upload them, Vero Social doesn’t do this. Your photos are displayed in high definition, so you no longer have to be frustrated by the disappointing image quality you get from other social media platforms.
Another awesome feature about Vero is that you can categorize your images based on location. This can be helpful if you shoot at certain venues a lot and want to be able to showcase a collection of images from one place.
Behance for Photographers
Behance is a popular social media platform for creatives to share their photos and artwork for free. As long as you have an Adobe account, you can create a Behance profile and upload as many images as you want. The website is a great place to start making a portfolio and building a name in the industry.
Your online visual portfolio allows people and other professionals to see your work. In some cases, people hire photographers based on what they see on the website. Besides sharing your portfolio, you can also check out the careers section and score a creative job.
Another thing to love about Behance is that the website is easy to use thanks to the simple interface. Even if you’re not a coder, you can develop your profile in a way that suits your photography style. From there, you can use the following unique features.
- Project: Allows you to group photos, videos, and other digital work that follow a single theme or process. Every project contains a unique URL for sharing across the web, letting you monitor how many people see your portfolio.
- For You: This serves as the home screen for users to check the work of other creatives they follow.
- Follow: Enables other Behance members to follow your profile. Once they do that, they can see your projects on their feed.
- Featured Galleries: This acts as the ‘best of Behance’ landing page, which is the first thing that people see. Behance’s curators highlight well-crafted and innovative photos and digital artwork from different categories. You can get featured depending on your content’s quality, context, tools, and tags.
Ella K. Photography
Tumblr for Photographers
Tumblr was the first microblogging website to showcase the power of photos online. It continues to let creatives share their work with just a few clicks. Aside from images, you can also create posts using text, video, audio, GIFs, and quotes.
Tumblr is fairly easy to use, making it a great place for photographers to manage a portfolio without using complicated codes or settings. Once you set up a profile, you can upload your work for people to see and share.
It’s a platform that you can either love or hate, depending on your niche or preference. However, if you want to combine blogging and photography, this is an excellent place to expose your portfolio for free.
While it may not be the most popular of the social media platforms anymore, teenagers still enjoy utilizing this site. So, based on who your ideal client is, you might be able to use this platform to book more clients!
Nicole Nero Studio
Flickr for Photographers
You may think Flickr is so 2004, yet it remains one of the best social media platforms to store and share your photos online. Unlike other social media channels, Flickr’s free version now allows users to upload up to 1,000 high-resolution images.
While its popularity isn’t the same as before, Flickr continues to be a thriving community for creatives to get exposure online. With millions of monthly users, there’s a chance for bloggers or marketing professionals to buy your photos for their websites.
After uploading images, you can create albums for various themes, niches, or locations. You may also incorporate SEO by adding a description, tags, and keywords. In this way, Google can locate your photos using keywords or phrases.
Piper Brown Photography
Social Media for Photographers
Share your work on social media across different platforms for different influences on your business. From website traffic, to brand awareness, to lead generation, there are plenty of ways that online marketing channels can make a large impact for photographers.
Check out different platforms and see which social media strategies work best for you!
Nicole Nero Studio
Written by MEGAN BREUKELMAN | Cover by SONNIE HILES | Photographs by ELLA K. PHOTOGRAPHY, NICOLE NERO STUDIO, PIPER BROWN PHOTOGRAPHY, THE MEYER PHOTO + VIDEO GROUP, TARA T. PHOTOGRAPHY
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