Using Social Media

How social media can help photographers to find an ideal client

This might be one of the trickiest questions to face photographers engaging with social media platforms – after all, although raising profile, increasing online awareness, and positive impacts on Search rankings all come as part of the deal with social media engagement, some tangible return (such as an ideal client) via social media activity is a bonus we can all relate to in the competitive photographic marketplace today.

Here’s how I look for an ideal client via social media:

It’s all about relevance, and thinking like your customer. Start by looking at which social media platforms you’re engaging on, sharing links, posting blogs, and ask if your ideal client is likely to be exposed to your offerings.

Make sure that you’re posting material which is relevant to them – their commercial sector, their niche, their industry. Use relevant keywords for their business in your social media content, and connect with key players in their industry.

Observe the conversation, see what’s being discussed in your ideal client’s sector. Add value and expertise into the online comments, highlight how you can help – without selling – and point towards useful content across the web.

Leave any agendas or hard sell out of the conversation, engage, and add value. Consider, for example, connecting your ideal client with contacts in your network which might benefit their business. It’s likely, for example, that you will have at least one contact who could buy services and products from your ideal client. Connect them up, leverage your network links.

Have a plan and stick to it. If you’re going to target, for example, fashion houses or bands (as I do) then engage a dozen of them with a view to converting one into a paying client.

Remember, the sales cycle via social media is longer than other marketing routes, but it usually provides a lower cost of sale and longer client retention, based on a more personal, trust-based business relationship. And photography is a very personal business, if done well.

One of the hardest things about finding an ideal client social media is the perception of having to let clients come to you. This is only a perception. You can gently speed up the process.

If you’re working your social media platforms with defined strategy, your inputs, comments and networking advice to your targets will draw them to you over time, leading to increased conversations, added value, and that most valuable question: ‘So, what could you deliver for us, then?’ which is the sweet spot of social media engagement for any photographer.

Here are the key facts, in my experience, for finding ideal clients via social media:

• Forget all traditional marketing thinking and techniques.
• Don’t use sales-based language, and don’t ever write a proposal.
• Observe, then engage.
• Add value, help, network, use Search keywords in your content.
• Work social media platforms with a defined strategy, not randomness.
• If you’re looking for a quick win, re-think why you’re using social media.
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So, the next time you wonder if social media engagement is really worth it, ask yourself - am I really working it, or just present without a purpose? Is my online content attracting attention? Am I targeting niches across social media platforms, which could convert into paid business?