Social media has an infinite, universal audience. But as you define your niche, your potential audience becomes smaller and smaller. Not everyone is interested in macro photography of sand, so how do you maximize your audience? By understanding what your potential value is to your followers.
Have you ever thought that your final work might not be the most interesting part of what you do? For many, just changing how you talk about your work can completely change your maximum potential audience and engagement retention.
Your value proposition on social media is an interesting discussion topic that you won’t find in a marketing class in college. No one ever talks about how important it is that what you post needs to add some type of value to the person following you. Whether it’s inspiration, education, or by just being a fun person, there’s a reason people hit “follow.” In this article, I’ll go over the some of the different styles and who can benefit from them.
Inspirational
Who Is This For
Some people are just so good, everything they do you want to save in a scrapbook. This is for the upper echelon of people who have such an incredible style and consistency that you just have to stay attached. Now, we can’t all be this, but that doesn’t mean we can’t all have a seat at the table. These are for pretty much anyone with a distinct, original style and consistently phenomenal work. This can be anyone; you don’t need to do anything special, but if your work is phenomenal, just keep posting it.
What Audience Does This Attract
Because of the quality, they interest everyone from photographers to normal people with no connection to photography who just like art or nice landscapes.
Downsides
You need to be great and stay great. If you’re just good, you will fall into the Transactional category.
Example
I absolutely adore Julia’s work. Every time I see something new, it’s a kick in the butt that I need to keep shooting. Her audience is definitely more makeup enthusiasts and photographers, but that’s because her niche immediately separates herself from an audience like landscape or pet photographers.
Educational / Technical
Who Is This For
These are people who not only share great work, but always add something informative and nuanced along with it. Every post, you’ll find a lighting diagram or a caption about why a print portfolio still matters in 2020. These accounts are usually inspirational, but also are tailored for someone to learn. You can be one of these people, but you really need the work to back it up.
What Audience Does This Attract
They are specifically targeting other photographers with this style. Adding in lighting diagrams and talking about photography topics in the caption can be interesting for newer photographers who want to learn. This won’t deter your target client from reaching out; in many cases, it will also interest them because educating shows you know what you’re doing.
Downsides
You really need the work to back up what you’re talking about. You can’t be talking about something and not know what you’re doing. I say this as I write an article on social media when I have less than 5,000 followers, but we will get to that in Transactional.
Example
Lindsay Adler is an incredible photographer and educator. Most posts come with something to teach, and she is very open to answering questions when they’re asked.
Storyteller
Who Is This For
Storytelling is a fantastic approach if you’re a landscape photographer or your work is editorial in nature. People want to know more about how you got the shot and what it was like. You don’t have to talk about changing apertures or putting on lens filters, but talking about the hike that you took to get the shot or something that made the bridal party laugh at the ceremony; you’re going to find a lot of people are interested in these stories.
What Audience Does This Attract
It really depends on how you tell your stories, but telling stories is a great way to build bonds with whomever chooses to follow you. You are showing yourself, and people love that.
If you’ve ever seen independent recipe blogs, it’s a joke online that people looking for roasted potato recipes are mad that the writers tell personal stories to go with the instructions. But the whole reason they do that is because there is a segment of people who enjoy the stories and will read the recipes for the story. Telling stories connects people; they always have.
Downsides
If your work is very formulaic, this won’t be interesting to the viewer. You really need to shoot things like editorials, food, or landscape, where your subjects and difficulties are always changing.
Example
My favorite example of this is Art Streiber. His work is incredible, but the stories he tells are what keep you interested in what he does. His style is almost educator/technical, but the way he talks about the experience is why you stay engaged, not where the lights are placed.
Fun/Interesting
Who Is This For
This consists of two important differences. We’ll start with if you are a fun or interesting person. If your personality is interesting, you travel a lot, or your day-to-day is unique, showing that off is a great way to gain an audience that will stay around. There are people I have never worked with and probably will never have an opportunity to, but I still follow them, because they’re fun people, and if I pass by their Instagram Story, I’ll probably get a laugh.
The second part of this category is if your work is fun or interesting. If what you shoot is interesting, like newspaper editorials where you’re getting a chance to share someone else’s story, people will stay around to see what you do next. Humans of New York will always have an audience, because it is consistently interesting. This also goes for people who shoot fun things. If your work is energetic or sparks joy, people will always want to be around that. Similar to HoNY, The Dogist is consistently fun and interesting, because it’s just pictures of dogs on the street. People always want something like that in their lives, especially on an escapist outlet like Instagram.
Another great group for this is people who do very niche photography. Like people who shoot scenes with toys, if you start posting behind the scenes of how everything was shot, your audience will increase, and you’ll have a bunch of articles written about you. There are a lot of intricacies that go into niche types of photography that we don’t normally see, and that tends to be what people are interested in.
What Audience Does This Attract
This one is relative to your niche; you’re not reaching out to any one group. This is closer to Transactional, but you have staying power, because people want to keep you around.
Downsides
For the first category, it’s based off you. You need to stay interesting and fun, which can be stressful if you’re going out of your way to do it. I don’t recommend it for people who are trying to be fun and interesting. But if you’re reading this and realize your environment just happens to be fun, try adding that into what you do. Post more behind the scenes videos in your stories and feed, add more storytelling in your captions. It can help.
For the second category, if you switch what you do, people will be less likely to continue to follow. Simple as that. If you’re fun and start posting more editorial with a different style, you’re no longer giving your audience what they came for, and they might not like that. They’re not there for avant garde pictures of birds; they want you to make them smile.
Example
John Schell is an incredible photographer, but he’s also just an interesting guy with an adorable lab. His work takes him to incredible places, but you don’t just get lifestyle photos for REI, you’ll also get little glimpses into his interesting personality.
Beth Sternbaum is one of my favorites to follow, because her work is just fun. The way she shoots beauty is always bright and full of energy, especially her animations.
Transactional
You don’t want to be in this category, but I’m sure many of the people reading this are here. Being transactional basically means that people are coming to you for a service, and once they get that service, they leave. If you’re looking to build your social media presence, you do not want to be here. In this situation, you treat your social media just like a social portfolio, and that’s it. The problem is there’s no value in what you’re posting online besides being the photographer from X location. You don’t offer anything that makes people want to stay around. As soon as people shoot with you or you refuse to shoot with them for free, they stop following you.
Think of when you’re researching a new lens or lighting kit. For a month, you’re looking at blogs and comparisons that show everything about your new kit. As soon as you buy it, you’re done with that research. You’ve made your purchasing decision, there’s no more reason to Google “Profoto B1 vs. Godox AD600.” You’ve finished the transaction.
I’m in this category currently: it’s not great, but it’s not some weird death sentence either. When you’re young and still figuring out what you’re doing, it doesn’t make sense to worry about how you should be posting on social media. You should just be figuring out who you are, and once you know, then you can start looking at your value added online. Always remember that the work comes first, no matter what. None of this matters if the work isn’t good.
This one is from me. The work is good, but it’s not incredible. And the caption doesn’t really add anything. Maybe it makes you chuckle, but I don’t talk about the styling of the shoot or how the idea to shoot her laying down wasn’t planned. There was no value added in this.
How Do I Figure Out My Value Proposition?
I can’t really decide this for you; there are so many factors that go into it, but here are some questions you can ask yourself.
- Do I shoot something unique?
- Do I shoot in a fun/interesting environment?
- Can people learn from my experience?
- Do I have interesting lighting setups that vary every shoot?
- Am I knowledgeable enough to teach others?
Use these questions to start understanding what value you can add. If you shoot product, maybe the final product photo isn’t the value for social, but the setups you use to get the photo. If you shoot fashion editorials, maybe the behind the scenes showing the production and team working together is what people want to see. In many cases, there’s so much more to add than just the final product.
But Dave, I’ve Been Doing These Things and They’re Not Working
This is the part of the article where I add in the stipulations that come with everything. This all scales with the quality of your work. If you aren’t a good photographer, people won’t want to follow you. No matter what your behind the scenes content is, the work is still the most important part.
Another important caveat is just because you’re putting out great work doesn’t mean it’s getting seen. If you’re not engaging in The Flyer Theory or putting the right hashtags, you won’t be getting seen and therefore won’t be getting followers. Going along with this, adding value is just a part of the solution; it isn’t everything. Adding a BTS photo isn’t like a magic wand to fix all of your marketing problems. It’s a part of marketing plan that you need to execute consistently to build a brand and a following that people like.
Conclusions
You need to understand why people go to social media. It’s not for you; it’s for the value you add to their experience. In terms of building a social media presence, understanding your value is important for growing your following. Why do 10 million more people follow Red Bull over Coca Cola? Coke definitely has more sales, but look at what they post on Instagram. All they do is post illustrations and commercials. Now, look at Red Bull. They post a bunch of action videos from sponsored riders. Which one adds more value to the follower? People only follow Coke because they like the brand.
Figure out the part of what you do that is the most interesting, and try to embrace that on social media. Maybe you’re a food photographer, and you show the styling tips on your story. Maybe you’re part of a production team, and you have a lot of fun behind the scenes. Whatever it is, that extra value is what makes people want to keep coming back.