We all love Instagram. Or maybe we hate it. Honestly, it’s probably a love/hate relationship! One thing is for sure, though: as a photographer, you have a strong advantage. You create beautiful content daily that can stop the scroll. Lucky you!
Making Instagram work for your business depends on much more than having just the beautiful photos, though. And the goal is always to create new relationships with potential clients and to nurture existing client relationships. How do you do that, though? What’s the secret sauce?
I recently sat down with Nat Caron and Ang Swann-Doyon from The Social Focus to discuss just this. They brought their Instagram genius to the table! Our talk was packed with tips and tactics that can help you have a much stronger Instagram game. The talk was live only, but I took plenty of notes for you! Read on to get a recap of all the wisdom.
First, the basics.
There were two overarching things that Nat and Ang kept going back to:
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Know your audience, and
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Focus on storytelling, experience, and conversation.
Knowing your audience will tell you things like what time of day to post, what tone and language to use, what themes or topics will resonate the most, and what conversations to start. So if you’re wanting to connect with an interior designer, you need to dive a bit deeper. What type of projects are they doing? You’re most likely talking to a woman, but what is her business like? Is it a small firm, or a one-woman practice? Then she’ll be juggling more herself and may check IG at night before going to bed. Is she leading a medium- or large-sized firm and has the support of a team? She may check into IG a few times during the day or even have someone else handling IG for her. Knowing these things will guide you on what and when to post.
Focusing on storytelling, experience, and conversation speaks to your CAPTIONS. We’ll get to more tips on that in a bit, but for now just know that you want to always be starting conversations. You’re not just putting words out into the universe; you’re connecting and talking to actual people! So pretend that you’re talking to that one person who is your avatar, your ideal client. That’s who you’re writing the caption for. Start a conversation with her. Engage. Ask questions. Use her language.
Quick Tips
- Speaking of language, make sure it relates to your client’s language. Not sure what her language is? Go to your client’s profile and look at the captions they post. Pay attention to the tone, language, and themes to help you create captions that she can relate to!
- When writing captions, write at a 3rd- or 4th-grade level. Yep, you read that correctly. Writing at this level helps make sure that the captions will be easily read, understood, and enjoyed!
- When you do get comments on your posts, reply! Do not leave a comment without a response. This acknowledges the time and effort that the commentator took to leave a comment for you.
- After you post, block out about 20 minutes to have your phone nearby. This way, you can reply quickly to any comments that are posted. Replying quickly helps ensure the conversation can keep going, but also gets your post more love from the Instagram algorithm gods.
- Engage. When you’re on Instagram, don’t go in just to post and then leave! Don’t forget that social media should be social. Engaging brings engagement.
- Not sure what to share in your captions? Create themes. Think of your target audience and what themes or topics are most appealing to them. Use those as your guide.
- Asking questions is always a good idea! Ask questions and pose questions to your audience. Think about what sorts of questions you get asked the most by potential clients, and use those questions as a guide for what topics to discuss.
- Timing does matter. Know your audience’s rhythm and movement to know when you should post. For example, is your client avatar a mom? She may check IG while waiting for her kids to come out of school at 3pm.
- Your captions should start with one line as a hook (to catch your audience’s interest), then the body where you tell the story, and end with questions or call-to-action (CTA). CTAs shouldn’t be used on every single post, but they can be a great opportunity for engagement and follow-up.
- Show yourself in your feed! While metrics do support that posting photos of yourself on the feed gets more engagement, it’s really about connection. If your audience sees your face, they better connect with you, which leads to them sticking around and engaging! Since someone going to your feed sees the top 6 or 9 posts, you’ll want to make sure that there’s a post showing YOU every 9 posts or less.
- Not sure how to use stories? Consider stories the “reality show” of Instagram, and your feed is the curated final product.
- Did you know IG has a timer feature? If you want to make sure you’re not spending endless hours scrolling, set a timer for your IG use. On your profile, tap the three lines on top right of the screen to open the menu. Select “Your Activity”. From the top tabs, select “Time”. Towards the bottom, select “Set Daily Reminder”. Then enter the max time you want to spend on IG in a day. When you picked your time limit, tap on the “Set Reminder” button. That’s it!
Conclusion
As a photographer, you have a great advantage on Instagram. It’s not all about the pretty photos, though. Thankfully, there are amazing women like Nat and Ang of The Social Focus to help make Instagram feel more doable. Now go rock those feeds!
xo,
Natalia