A step by step guide to how Photographers can easily generate high quality leads with Instagram.

For a picture is worth a thousand words! And Instagrammers love pictures. 

Photographers behold the power to make a quick social scroller, pause for a few seconds and immerse in his beautifully captured moment.

It is commonly seen that people relate better with graphically presented information. Would you believe it if I say that the average number of images uploaded each day on Instagram is close to 100 million. With well employed tricks and dedicated skills, Instagram gives a great opportunity of building a permanent fanbase.

Photographers have a world of content in terms of images.  

Today it’s very simple for photographers to generate leads with Instagram by showing the kind of work they can do. Let’s look into one such social site that can insanely boost the ROI of a  photography business 

The powerhouse of image presentation – Instagram

Instagram has changed the way the world ever looked at images. 

If you have a database of pictures and want to win over a few good clients, this platform comes first in my list. Pictures can be beautifully presented and creativity can be endless here. Posting small albums of a single theme or concept, works better. Pictures showing real work or events always get more visibility than promotional stuff or graphics created for a purpose. A wedding photographer will generate more organic leads if she/he can showcase the images of a real wedding more than graphics to sell a slot for the upcoming season bookings. 

In my last few years of experience of working with social media marketing, I haven’t come across something so insanely easy and fast. 

Look into the following statistics to understand the power of this platform –

1. Out of all the registered accounts on Instagram around 80% follow a business account. – SO why wait? Start off with your own business account right now!
2. Instagram claims that about 60% of it’s users find new products via other profiles. Which means your services would not be difficult to be found.
3. According to Hootsuite, 75% of users engage with a business after seeing their post. This tells us that every penny you spend on an ad on Instagram is worth it. 
4. Today, people spend as much time on Instagram as they spend on Facebook. Certainly,some industries are made for Instagram – fashion, beauty, automobile,wedding planning, photography and travel are a few of them.
5. Statista says, Instagram stories have 400 million active daily consumers. Be very creative and concise and win over some clients through stories!

Read about the journey of these 6 Instagram photographers with a million followers. It’s Possible!

Instagram marketing also needs planning. Just a few posts here and there wouldn’t work. 

Optimize your Bio – 

The first thing to be done is having a great page with an awesome bio. 

Work on the following things to hook a visitor. 

• Profile image
• Content
• Link

Remember that your bio reflects your personality. Write something that grabs attention. Add contact details for your followers to leave you an inquiry. Specific keywords that target your niche audience is very crucial.

Engage with your audience-

If you want leads, this is the most important thing to do. Engage with your audience wisely. 

Show them that you pay attention to what they say. Draft every reply with a little personalisation and don’t miss out on showing some love. A reply need not be too long but it cannot also be just a boring “Thanks”..

Engaging responses usually have – emojis, gifs or a follow up question.

The best part here is you need not worry about having a huge set of followers right at the beginning. Engage with followers of your competitors or brands that are related to your industry.

If they like you they visit you and bring in their network too! It’s a myth that you can neglect any negative reviews. Reply to it because It’s a part of the game and take it in the best possible way.

Localise your posts –

When your posts show where the image was clicked and more details about the area, the audience connects with it in a better way. If you are a destination photographer, always write where you shot that image so that the client gets acquainted with the fact that you can manage a shoot at his desired location also.

What user-generated content can do – 

This is the best way to show the world how much your brand is loved. The latest kid photography done by you is flaunted over on a client’s instagram post, tagging you, can be a great social proof! Keep in touch with your client profiles and encourage more of such posts to build social trust and brand awareness. Showcase consistency in your image quality and branding. It will encourage your followers to love your work and talk about it with confidence.

Create lead generation ads –

Follow a few steps and run campaigns to generate leads.

• Make sure you have a facebook page and instagram profile. Go to the ads manager on facebook and start building your ad. It’s quite simple. 
• Choose a marketing objective
• Define your audience with utmost care
• When choosing placements, it is generally advised to choose Automatic placements.
• Choose your bid
• Set an ad format
• Create lead form

Go for a lookalike audience – 

After running a few campaigns, facebook lets you create a lookalike audience of instagrammers, based on the data collected. This would depend on the following factors – 

A. Who engaged with your ad   

B. People who saved your content

C. People who liked your content, your images and your stories

D. People who followed your account

E. People who sent a message or inquired about your photography service 

This data helps facebook create a better ad reachability and target a perfect audience for you.

Measure the success of your campaign –

It is important to measure the success of your campaign. There are a few metrics which can help you calculate your ROI.

Use Google Analytics to tell you how many people landed to your website via social channels or how many forms were filled with complete information, the age and location of your potential client etc. 

You can also track landing page click rate, conversion rate and customer acquisition cost. 

Go live on Insta!

One feature that helps maximum engagement. Yes, it highlights the profiles that have gone live and you can achieve maximum engagement at certain hours of the day, when your followers are most active. You can get the insights of your page to find which day and time your followers are mostly online and active to make the most out of this feature.

This requires a certain level of planning and all tools needed have to be mindfully arranged prior.

Get a topic you want to talk about, it could be something like what are the best practices of wedding photography or family photography. Be open to any questions. Play smart with trolls and share about any latest or amazing work done in the past. Get one or two people from the audience to join you and ask about any information they want.

This can be a great way of getting followers instantly.

Plan attention-grabbing insta stories –

This one should be done with the aim of getting to 10k followers at the earliest. You know why? Once you reach that number, Instagram activates the Swipe up option in your story wherein you can put up links to your website or blog or anywhere you want. Isn’t that interesting?

Yes, Put up at least 5 stories in a day and you being a photographer, surely have that much content to play with.

Remember that a content strategy is the best way to start. You may have pictures but captions that are attached also matter to tell a story behind it.  Develop a strategy to schedule posts during the day. Get into your competitor profiles and see what’s going on to stay out there. Also do a good research on what hashtags work for your kind of industry and what your followers are following. Consistency is key to getting better with post quality and content. Each day you will evolve with more and more ideas and ways to a curated and consistent Instagram presence.

So, Kickstart your Instagram account now with all the above tips and get the leads that you always wanted.

Author Bio –

Shweta Jain is the founder of BitWise Branding, a branding consultant company in Ahmedabad, India. A passionate blogger at heart, she loves to write about the latest trends in digital marketing. Her agency has delivered tailor-made solutions to the marketing and online promotion needs of various businesses since 2010, with a mix of technology and online advertising.