4 emerging marketing trends to keep your photography business ahead of the pack
Staying on top of the latest marketing trends is crucial! It keeps your business relevant, and helps you stay on track with the latest trends. It also helps you to better understand how to reach your target audience.
Because photographers have such busy lives, we know how difficult it is for you to keep up with the latest news.
We’ve collected information on the latest four marketing trends in photography, their benefits, and potential value for your photography business. Take a look and feel free to “steal” them all! 🙂
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social media is becoming a search engine
Social media platforms have become the focus of the Internet. Up until recently, when people needed to find something they would go to Google.
However, a new era has arrived! Nowadays, people rely on social media for everything that has to do with any information online. More and more people skip right over Google or Yahoo when conducting a search. Instead, they type it into social media networks.
With different social media networks out there for any interest or need, more often than not it is faster and easier to just search within the social network itself. Furthermore, with mobile apps, which are faster than the Internet function on phones, social media is becoming increasingly prevalent as a search engine.
Looking for the latest news? Check out the trending page on your favorite social media platform.
Looking for something specific? A simple hashtag will bring back the most relevant, and most recent results.
Looking for a job? #Hiring has a worldwide list of job openings in various industries. Contact the employer. Send them a link to your CV, or discuss the job opening with current and/or previous employees.
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To squeeze the most value out of this trend for your photography business, make sure you do the following:
- Post quality content that helps your followers.
- Use hashtags — where appropriate — to help them find your posts.
- Create content that relates to trending topics and hashtags to increase your audience.
- Interact with your community, and showcase your best features! Post your work, your aspirations, and your photography style.
- Reach out to other photographers. Share their work, and show the respect that you would like shown in return.
- Don’t wait for people to find you online. Show them that you’re already there!
Want to see how your fellow photographers are leveraging the social media trend? Check out some of the popular “magazines” in phlow HERE !
the continued rise of mobile
Are you reading this on a mobile device? Mobile devices have quickly become the preferred method for people to read, explore and stay engaged online. Today, smartphones are not only used to browse social media apps. They are used more and more to make bank transactions, online purchases for food, clothing and everything else in between.
Why? Simply because it makes our lives more convenient.
Your website, social media, or online portfolio, are more likely to be viewed from mobile devices than from desktops. If you are thinking of having decent traffic on your website or social media networks, just make sure to make them mobile friendly. Take a look at the brief “checklist” below to help you get started:
- Make your website mobile-friendly. Define effective mobile design and functionality options for your website and decide what’s best: mobile versioning, responsive design, mobile applications, etc.
- Mobile phone users absorb visuals more than text or content, so make sure to include images and video and to make them mobile-friendly too.
- Due to the screen size, simplifying and shortening the sentences to reduce the reader’s need to scroll is essential.
- Since people will most likely come across your content while scrolling through thousands of other pieces of information, make your headline count so that the viewer is able to read it in one quick glance.
- When it comes to links and icons, ensure they are readable and clickable on mobile devices.
Keep this in mind as you prepare your online business for visitors. Tailor everything you do to suit them and their needs.
Did you already define your ideal buyer persona? If you haven’t, check out this free guide to help you determine who your ideal customer is, what are their needs, goals and challenges! Based on that insight, you’ll be able to tailor your marketing content according to their needs and preferences.
mobile apps vs. websites
What’s better for your business, a mobile app or a mobile website? Or both?
A mobile website is a website optimized and scaled for mobile devices. A mobile app is a program accessed via the Internet or stored locally. We’ll dive into the Pros and Cons for each so you can make a more informed decision.
mobile apps
pros
- Available for all mobile operating systems.
- Focus on your particular business or product, and can be tailored to the smallest detail.
- Approx. 1.5 faster than mobile websites.
- Push notifications and instant updates.
cons
- Much higher costs to develop than a mobile-friendly website.
- Must be constantly maintained to avoid bugs and privacy breach.
- Must have a Support team to handle questions and comments.
- If not done well, can be destroyed by negative reviews.
mobile-friendly websites
pros
- Quicker and cheaper to design and launch.
- Able to reach a wider audience.
- Compatible across all devices.
- Easier to maintain.
cons
- Can only update users about news and features via email.
- Not available for offline access.
- Can become overwhelmed by too much content to fill up space.
Determining which one is most suited for your needs will depend on a number of factors. This includes target audience, available budget, intended purpose and required features.
We recommend to start with drafting a marketing strategy tailored to your photography business. It will serve you as a basis for your further marketing-related decisions. To help you get on your way, we put together this Marketing Fundamentals Guide ! You can download it for FREE.
content marketing & photography storytelling
Storytelling is a great way to immerse an audience into a business and its content. Luckily, the very nature of photography is storytelling. Viewers will easily connect the image to the story. If the connection works, people will return for more content on a regular basis.
Using the storytelling technique to tell the story behind your brand is a very powerful move. It will raise the engagement and the bond with your target audience. Use your photographs to tell a story about your brand, your team behind the scenes, or even about some daily stuff. Be creative and put together a storyline. It will support your beautiful photographs, amaze your audience and leave them “hungry” to find out more.
Let us know your thoughts! How are you going to use these trends to transform your photography business and reach out to the widest possible audience?
Need some inspiration from your fellow photographers that rock social media? Check out these magazines / streams and see how they’re doing it. If you’d like to join them, click below and download the phlow app — it’s FREE!
