That’s right, I said it: If you aren’t sharing content on Instagram, you are shutting the door on a world of potential opportunities! With over 200 million users, this social network has the power to become one of your most important means of promoting your photography business.
Did you know that Instagram is the only social media built strictly around sharing photos? Instagram is literally all about photos. There is no text to junk up your feed, just pictures! And you are a photographer! It is basically a match made in heaven. Jump on the theoretical bandwagon already and capitalize on our fascination with photo sharing.
“But the quality of my photo will be lost,” you might lament! While this is true, companies like Getty Images and Sports Illustrated are curating galleries using photos taken from Instagram. If these big names (and more) think the quality is good enough to print in their magazines and license on their websites, it is pretty safe to say that your professional photos will be just fine. After all, you are probably already posting to Facebook and the quality on that platform isn’t all that grand to begin with. Link your website in your bio and you will be set.
Instagram allows your work to be discovered. My underwater photographer friend, Jenn Bischof, always knew the importance of Instagram. One day, she entered their “Weekend Hashtag Project” contest on a whim and won on her first try. This led to Instagram discovering her page, her gaining 10K followers, and Instagram featuring her photo at their convention in NYC. Similarly, I know many people who share photos of when their idols or famous people like and follow their pages. Many other social media platforms just don’t allow for this type of involvement. Instagram doesn’t discriminate between accounts with millions of followers and accounts with ten.
If she wasn't on Instagram, Jenn Bischof's photo (middle row, far left), would never have been displayed in front of 110 million followers.
Instagram doesn’t limit your post reach (yet). One of my social media clients has 13,000 Facebook followers. When I share content through this page, Facebook “decides” that 400 people will see it. 400 out of 13,000 people. Sometimes, if I am lucky, that reach will jump to 2,000, but that’s usually about as generous as it gets. Facebook’s algorithm is set to limit the reach because Facebook wants you to pay to promote. Although Facebook acquired Instagram, we have yet to hear of any reach-impeding algorithms or pay-to-promote ad options. Share your photo, hashtag appropriately, post consistently, and watch the likes roll in!
Hashtags let you engage with your target audience. Sure, on other social media, you can hone your target audience, but Instagram takes it to another level with their massive hashtag database. Hashtagging your photos is easier than ever before! Instagram even allows you to see how many other people have tagged #landscapephotography or #weddingphotographer. You are allowed to have up to 30 specific tags on each photo. Use them wisely and to your advantage. You can even come up with a unique hashtag that is specific to your business and curate your content there.
Type in your potential tags and see how many other people use them. The more tags, the more likely people are to see your photo!
Sure, you can stress to me all of the reasons why Instagram is a horrible invention and kills opportunities for the modern photographer, or you can jump on this growing craze, focus on your business, and set yourself up for social media success. Either way, the pros outweigh the cons and almost every major business, established photographer, and successful retailer has made the move to Instagram. Now, it’s your turn!
Um, no. As a model, you just LOVE followers. Working photographers love MONEY! I work with a local model who has over 2.2M Facebook followers and the same sort of following on other social media such as Instagram. I visited her apartment and it was in a horrible part of town, roach infested and she couldn't afford to move to a better spot (and our town is not expensive). Oh, and she's a great model - gorgeous, easy to work with and hard working. If you're going to write an article such as this, show a broad trend to monetizing followers. In this article, you didn't show even isolated anecdotes of monetization and, even if you did, that would not indicate a larger trend toward something like Instagram being a driver for money. FS can do better than this!
I'm writing this from a digital media marketing expert standpoint, not a model standpoint. I manage social media for over 40 companies right now. Although we want to, of course, increase profits, social media is only an avenue to direct people to your website and generate a name. Social gives your brand a voice and allows people to connect with you. In this day and age, we are all about connecting. Unfortunately, making money is not the sole point of being on social media these days. Customers want to see and interact with a company and social offers them that capacity.
Oh, okay, I read your profile and it describes you as a model with no mention of your expertise in digital media marketing. Making money is definitely not the sole point of social media - I agree with this statement. Most people are on social media to socialize. The sole point of being in business is to make a profit and the sole point of marketing is to generate leads that convert to customers. So much of the conversation around digital media marketing has to do with gaining followers yet little of the conversation covers moving those followers to becoming leads and clients. Most of all, I'm a big believer that digital marketing of photography yields leads that are interested in digital products. To gain prospects that are interested in tangible products (such as prints) the marketing effort is more effective in the real world. Most of all, I would really be interested in an article covering the business impact of your digital marketing - that is, the bottom line impact of your marketing for the companies for which you manage social media.
Several commenters have complained that Instagram is hard to use because you can't load images from your computer. And yes, that would make it easier, but my way is easy too. I go into Lightroom, create 20-30 images for Instagram, plug in my phone and load them into a folder. Then I can upload images as I want.
Have Fun,
Jeff
This article fully glossed over the 'why' with only one example of Jenn Bischof. OK, she gained 10,000 followers and went to NYC, but did she get more work for her business? How about some stories of people getting real paying jobs through Instagram?
This article is creepy. We're not mindless drones that can be told in one simplistic tone to deny what we already know from experience.
Very cool thanks! I like IG but sometimes it drives me a bit nuts too...anyhow I'm @liamjski if anyone's interested
As a photographer who used a DSLR, Instagram is a very convoluted workflow. It may be one of the more popular social photography sites, but it's emphasis on mobile seems to cater to a different market that I want to access.
Having said that, I have not found a social photography site that really works for me...
When you think about it, you can grow some success off Instagram but it is limited these days by Facebook apparently as they always find ways to bottleneck your work from escalating much farther but I feel for the time I've been on Instagram, the media favors art over traditional style photography a lot more than so. So in some weird way, you have to have something that is very unique to prosper on Instagram or else you really won't grow that much forward. I feel like at this point and time I have to switch focus to finding ways to changing my style to please the Instagram community. I've been at it for quite some time now and as much as I've grown by working with others. I also feel that I've learned new things and know what works and what doesn't work.
http://www.instagram.com/nstantclassic
meh. Still making more money off of word-of-mouth-gram....I do appreciate IG for warm fuzzy factor though.
Instagram Is pretty awesome in getting out there and seeing the work of other photographers. it's also a pretty cool community tool in connecting with other artists. I'm at www.instagram.com/Harebear
I am not going to cry about my account .. yet ;) Big names i admire - destination wedding photographers, have in average like 1000 followers and these numbers stuck and barely grow, very similar is on fb as well but let's not get into that.. yet ;) They post almost on daily basis and with relevant tags - i am talking about like 100 profiles here. It is so hard to impress someone nowadays. Yes, you get likes on each photo but just like on fb after that is silence... big empty silence - i mean maybe once in 1000likes you get 1 follower. Nobody wants to follow teenagers just to get some numbers - this is wrong. Times are ugly.
I am not going to cry about my account .. yet ;) Big names i admire - destination wedding photographers, have in average like 1000 followers and these numbers stuck and barely grow, very similar is on fb as well but let's not get into that.. yet ;) They post almost on daily basis and with relevant tags - i am talking about like 100 profiles here. It is so hard to impress someone nowadays. Yes, you get likes on each photo but just like on fb after that is silence... big empty silence - i mean maybe once in 1000likes you get 1 follower. Nobody wants to follow teenagers just to get some numbers - this is wrong. Times are ugly.
Thanks for the article Victoria! So let's test this thing called Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carusod :)
Any suggestion on how to improve would be appreciated!
I use Instagram & it gets me a good amount of exposure. Feel free to check out my page @ instagram.com/photographyirie like, comment, follow. Any & all input will be greatly appreciated!
I'm in the skeptical camp as I work on a desktop computer. If I can't post to IG direct from my computer then I'm not going to waste my time. This attached video is hilarious and quite relevant to all the social media hype, check it out and enjoy!
https://www.facebook.com/foilarmsandhog/videos/10158146617855335/?pnref=...
Actually here is the direct you tube video, worth it, trust me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27EukoQrVMU