If you’ve never tried influencer marketing, then your photography business has been missing a trick.

The great thing about it is that anyone can do it. Here’s how you can steal a march on the competition and get your brand out there.

 

Build a network of influencers so that you pop up all over the place

 

Unless you’re able to land LeBron James, you’re going to want to build a network of influencers. One is great, two is better, but a dozen would be perfect. Find influencers that complement one another by working in slightly different spaces.

 

This allows you to gain maximum exposure for your brand. This is also ideal if you want the type of saturation coverage that ensures you’re always at the forefront of people’s minds.

 

Empower your influencers to make their own original content

 

The power of social influencers lies in the fact that they’re clearly real people. Customers have grown weary of testimonials on websites since a lot of people now pay for them. But an influencer is seen as a genuine endorsement of your photographic skills.

 

If you want to take things to the next level, then you’re going to need to let the influencers loose. This means as well as prescheduled content, give them the tools they need to create their own content. Not only will their endorsements of your business seem all the more genuine, but they will also show the world that you have a good thing going.


If you have a big enough influencer, listen to their ideas

 

Your influencers aren’t just people promoting your business. In some ways, they’re also a reflection of your ideal customer. As they start to use your business to create their own content, they are bound to come up with all sorts of new and innovative ideas.

 

 

If you listen to what they have to say and then feed that into your core business, you’ll be able to come up with some interesting additions to what you’re offering. This is perfect if you want to assure your customers that you’re someone who will listen to what they want, and then go away and work so that you can make it happen.

 

 

“I believe passionately in the power of influencer marketing. It’s the social media equivalent of finding a celebrity or sports star to endorse your products on a TV commercial. My business certainly wouldn’t be the same without my network of influencers, so I listen to them whenever they come to me with a new idea” — says CEO of PickWriters.

 

Focus on Instagram. LinkedIn won’t connect you with your audience

 

 

The photography business is very specific in terms of which types of influencers you’re looking for. That means, you don’t just want to follow generic influencer marketing advice.

 

Your business exists in a visual space because that’s the nature of the industry. This means that Instagram, a social media platform intended for photos, is the platform you should be focusing on. Finding someone to promote your business on LinkedIn to all of their contacts may seem like a good idea, but how many people go on there to look at images?

 

Invite your influencers to take part in an experience

 

When you start working with a social influencer, you’ll soon want to branch out and start getting more creative with your content. This is necessary to keep content fresh, genuine, and authentic.

 

Create an experience that your influencers can take part in. It could be an event, a photo shoot, a photography workshop, a contest, or exhibit. They can then document it so your and their followers can get a genuine sense of what it feels like to work with you.

The specifics are up to you, but make the experience fun, exciting, and engaging. That way, your influencers will be sharing all sorts of user-generated content with their thousands of followers.

 

Collaborate with your influencers to support a cause that you both care about

 

 

Another way that you can leverage influencer following is to join forces with them and support a cause. Joining environmental and social responsibilities shows your market and the influencers’ followers that your brand has a human side to it. It is also a great way to show that you are a business that cares.

 

Promote a memorable hashtag that your followers will get onboard with

 

One of the key things about influencer marketing is the strategic and efficient use of hashtags. In digital marketing, they’re quite important so it pays to do your research rather than simply pick what you think will work. Once you find something that starts to gain traction, stick to that hashtag as part of your branding.

 

Too often, businesses chop and change hashtags on a weekly basis in the expectation that eventually they’ll go viral. This simply won’t work, and it’ll cost you a whole load of time and effort too. Rather, pick a hashtag that exemplifies your business; it could be as simple as your company name or a short, unique tagline.

 

Offer exclusive previews to your influencers to build anticipation

 

People who follow influencers are interested in what they get up to. So why not give your influencers teasers and exclusives of what’s cooking in your business?

 

If you have a new deal, product, or service about to go live, give them a sneak peek. They’re the experts at crafting posts people want to read. You just need to give them a few freebies, let them join the activity you’re promoting, invite them during a pre-launch, or access to a promo so that they know what you’ve been working hard on.

 

The great thing about this is it’s a natural and genuine way to create hype for a new launch. Any post that goes out will look like normal lifestyle pieces of content rather than ads. That’s the key point; an influencer’s followers will take a lot more notice than an overt in-your-face ad.

 

Always think long-term: one post won’t change anything

 

This is perhaps the most important thing to know for anyone starting a photography business. Or anyone in this line of business, actually. You need to think long-term: one post doesn’t do anything.

 

These days people are obsessed with going viral the moment they post anything. However, that’s just not how social networks function. The key to building a successful marketing strategy is to stay the course and keep working at it. If you can consistently apply yourself and get your message out there, then your brand will grow.

 

Take the time to implement influencer marketing properly, and your business will reap the rewards your hard work deserves.

 

About the writer: Elisa Abbott is a freelancer whose passion lies in creative writing. She completed a degree in Computer Science and writes about ways to apply machine learning to deal with complex issues. Insights on education, helpful tools, and valuable university experiences – she has got you covered :)