Posting is Not Marketing
The title caught your attention, right?
When I ask photographers how they are marketing their business, 99.9% of the time, they say "I'm posting."
But here's the thing: their posting is not working.
Their calendars are still emptier than they'd like and they are struggling to generate enough leads to gain any real traction in their photography business. The random "post and pray" strategy is not working.
What's worse is that they've wasted so much time figuring out what to post to build a following and create more engagement, but it's falling on deaf ears!
So I'll say it again: Posting is not marketing. Or more precisely, random posting is not marketing.
If you want more eyes on your social media feed, more leads in your inbox, and more photography bookings in your calendar, you'll need to create an intentional posting strategy for effective marketing.
So what in the world makes up an intentional and effective marketing strategy?
First, we need realize what the ultimate goal is of posting on social media. If we don't know why we are doing it, posing will more than likely feel like you are randomly calling out into the void.
Effective social media marketing incorporates 3 primary objectives.
The first objective in effective social media marketing is lead generation.
This gets people interested in you and your photography. It's the way you peak someone's interest to learn more about you and the photography you provide.
What's the best way to peak a potential client's interest?
Personally, I like to offer content that my potential client's would find valuable. For example, it could simply be educating them on the questions they have about the process of being photographed.
The kind of content varies from niche to niche, but let’s use a maternity and newborn client as an example. Valuable content for this particular niche could be sharing when the best time is for maternity photos and why, flattering maternity outfits that show off the baby bump, how to prep a newborn for a newborn photoshoot and/or best photography art work to display in your newborn's nursery.
In a nutshell, think of these kind of content posts as the bait that hook in a potential client. The most appealing bait will be content that serves them, answers questions, teaches, and shares valuable information with them.
The second objective in social media marketing is lead nurture.
Once you hook someone in (ie: they start following you on Instagram or join your email list), you'll want to continue to nurture that lead. They may not be ready to purchase a session from you right off the bat (so for previous example of a maternity and newborn client, she may have just found out she's pregnant), but by continuing to develop and nurture that relationship, you'll continue to build the know, like and trust factor.
Nurture type posts can also include helpful information as well as what it's like to work with you, past client stories, testimonials, and your own personal stories so they can get to know you as the photographer on a deeper level.
Again, the purpose of these kinds of posts are to continue to build the relationship so that by the time your potential client is ready to hire a photographer, they feel like they already know you, thereby they are much more comfortable in booking you.
Finally, the last purpose of effect social media marketing is lead conversion.
In order to convert a lead, you must ask for the conversion so make sure your social media marketing includes call to actions and a lot of them!
You can employ these in two primary ways.
Tell your lead what action to take after they are done reading your valuable content post or reel. Call to actions can include commenting below, follow for more, signing up for your email list, booking a session or DM’ing you for more info. Feel free to vary this up.
You can also incorporate posts that are straight up call to actions. In this instance, your posts can skip the value and focus heavily on getting your follower to convert or book a session. Personally, I recommend the 80/20 rule. 80% of your content is primary valuable content that captures and nurtures your leads and 20% of your social media can heavily promote your photography services, booking a session etc. Following the 80/20 rule will prevent you from appearing desperate and salesy within your social media feed.
Whew! This is a lot of information! To summarize:
Random posting is not marketing.
Effective social media marketing is about intentionality.
The 3 primary objectives of social media marketing (really any kind of marketing) are lead generation, lead nurture and lead conversion.
Follow the 80/20 rule when it comes to posting: 80% of your content is helpful information for your photography niche and 20% of your content is heavily promoting booking a session with you.
Hopefully this blog gave you a better understanding on how to structure your social media posts. If however, you are still unsure what to say to generate and nurture leads comment below SOCIAL and I'll share with you our list of 30+ content ideas for photographers that will create more engagement and reach!
Cheering you on!
Heather
P.S. Comment below SOCIAL so I can send you a free list of 30+ social media content ideas so you know what to say to get more leads and nurture them to becoming paying photography clients!