Instagram has become an invaluable tool for real estate photographers and for real estate marketing professionals. It’s a brilliant way to network, showcase your business, and find new clients. But it takes hard work and a little know-how in order to get the most out of your Instagram account.

Matthew Stallone from Stallone Media has one of Instagram’s most popular real estate photography accounts. He shared some valuable insights about how he uses social media on the Shooting Spaces Podcast. Stallone estimated that around ‘90% of my customers come from my Instagram account.’ But he was also realistic about how much work it takes, and that it can start to feel like a full-time job on its own.

There is a lot of great content out there and it takes perseverance and a few lucky breaks to get noticed. But when you do, there are massive rewards and opportunities to gather from becoming a trusted voice on Instagram.

Let’s talk about how to boost your Instagram effectiveness and what it can do for you.

4 Ways To Enhance Your Instagram Presence

Stick to a regular schedule

Stallone revealed that he posts new content at least five times a day and sets a schedule so that he tries to post when most people are naturally checking their timelines, which is usually:

• Mid-morning
• Late afternoon
• Around dinnertime
• Just before bed

That way you can make sure that you’re staying visible for your community.

So it’s very important to have a deep well of images that you can draw on easily for your feed. That shouldn’t be a problem for real estate photographers. Once the Instagram algorithm starts to understand that you’re a regular contributor, it’s more likely to recommend you as a follow to people interested in that subject.

In the early days, you should try and find an influencer or a local celebrity who you can associate with. Maybe offer to shoot their house for free, in exchange for some exposure and the chance to interact online with them. Some good @mentions from a celeb with a large, engaged following works as a stamp of approval and are certain to bring you, new followers.

That starts to create a snowball effect. If you celebrate the beauty of their homes, chances are they will praise your skill, or the realtor will share your work, or you’ll get spotted by a larger account and your reach just begins to expand organically.

The Importance of #hashtags

Instagram offers the opportunity to add up to thirty hashtags per post, and Stallone believes you should use them all. Focus on highlighting different aspects of a photo and then use that hashtag to bring in a different audience. For instance, you can include a great car as a prop in the driveway and then hashtag that car to bring in the Instagram car audience. Props are a great way to bring in different kinds of people who may find your work interesting.

But it’s also important to add the location of the property that you’re shooting, as well as industry-specific hashtags that people know to look for, such as #newlistings, #realestate, etc. There are certain tools out there that you can use to generate hashtags, but Stallone suggests taking the time to write out your own list of frequently used hashtags, and then saving them as a note that you can cut and paste when you need to.

You can either post your hashtags directly into the body of the message, or if you’re quick enough, you can cut and paste them as the first comment on the post. It helps you to get noticed by the algorithm if you’re not doing the same thing all the time. You will be rewarded for keeping things fresh.

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Tag or @ Your Clients

People in the industry love to be tagged into popular Instagram accounts. Make sure that you acknowledge people like clients, homeowners, landscapers and interior designers whose work may feature in your shots. It will bring them attention and give them an incentive to share the work and help contribute to the snowball effect you’re looking for. It might also help you get recurring work down the road…

Remember that Instagram is not like YouTube. You’re not getting paid for the number of impressions you get, but you’re looking for referrals and a network to help drive new business.

Using Instagram Stories

People don’t only want to see great examples of your work. They also want to know more about you as a photographer, the techniques that you use, and what it will be like for them to work with you. The best way to get that across is via Instagram Stories.

Since Instagram launched Stories in 2016, it has become a massive part of their user experience. More than 500 million people now use Instagram Stories every single day.

Use Stories to share your story and let people see behind the curtain of your business. When that is put together with great examples of your work, it’s a very powerful and effective combination.

Another unexpected side-effect of Stories is that it can lead to you being able to charge more. When you educate your clients about what you do behind the scenes, they start to appreciate all the things that you are doing and that helps them to correctly value your service and to pay higher prices for the work.

Making It Work for You

As you have no doubt seen for yourself, building a successful Instagram presence can take up an awful lot of time. After a while, it can start to feel like a full-time job.

If you’re posting a lot of content for your clients who want to take advantage of your following, then you should consider monetizing the work. Even if it’s a nominal fee, it starts to add up and makes you feel like you’re using your time productively.

The other strategy that many successful real estate photographers use is to employ a virtual assistant to help them manage their social media marketing. For a nominal fee, you can get a young, enthusiastic VA to take over that aspect of the job and allow you more time to focus on creating great images.

There’s no doubt that Instagram is one of the most affordable and effective tools at your disposal. Find a way of posting and engaging that works for you, and stick to it. As a real estate photographer, you’ll be amazed at how much value Instagram can add to your business.

Here are some tips on how to write creative and engaging captions for your photos.

1. Proper spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and grammar should be observed. Nothing is worse than a caption that is borderline unreadable.

2. Write short and concise captions. Generally, two or three sentences will suffice, with a total of around 140 characters. Only add a third sentence if more contextual information is necessary to explain the image thoroughly.

3. Adding the third sentence is a good idea if you want to direct the reader to the detail in the photo that you want them to focus on. For instance, in a real estate photo, you might write the third sentence as, “Note the Baroque-style archway in the hallway.”

4. If there’s a beautiful story behind the photo, then it is definitely fine to share it. The captions of National Geographic’s Instagram photos are perfect examples of long-form captions. Their impressive stories add value to their visuals.

5.  Make sure the information in your caption is correct and accurate. This is especially important in journalistic photos such as those in newspapers, magazines, journals, and reports. Ensure that professional titles are included, the names of the entities are properly spelled, the location is the right one, and the date is included. Double or triple-check your data to ensure that it is correct.

6. Avoid stating the obvious. If the bride and groom are smiling at each other, don’t write that they are smiling at each other. The photo already visually shows what the subject is doing. Rephrase the caption to reflect the story behind the image. Instead of saying, “The couple smiles at each other,” write, “John and Mary share a light moment during a break in their wedding ceremony rehearsal.

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7.  A quote from a famous person adds a meaningful touch to an image, especially if it is strongly related to the photo. Travel, landscape, wedding, wildlife, and portrait photos often use beautiful quotes to make the images more poignant.

8.  If you are writing for a specific audience, utilize jargon that the audience uses. Use the vocabulary, slang, nuances, and terms of the subject in your photo. For example, if your subject is a rock climber, use rock climbing jargon.

Write “John red points the tricky 5.15a Kong, finally conquering the crux of the route—an extremely steep overhang with no feet.” Your caption sounds awkward to the rock climbing community if you write, “John climbs and completes the 5.15a Kong after going up the most difficult part of the cliff.”

Using the wrong terminology or not knowing your subject’s jargon makes your caption sound amateurish.

9. Ask a question; it could be an open-ended question, a yes-or-no question, or a skill-testing question. Doing so engages the readers and encourages them to comment on your photo. The increase in engagement does wonders for your site’s search engine optimization (SEO). With good SEO, more people and potential clients will notice your website.

For example, for your latest glamour photo, you can write, “What do you think about La Ville’s new line of summer sundresses?”

It would also be a good idea to include a call to action to improve engagement. Ask people to write a comment, tag their friends, share your photo, join your contest, or share their opinion.

10. Use your business’ tagline or hashtag. This gives the photo a sense of identity and helps with branding. Additionally, using taglines and hashtags that are associated with your industry or business can help to you gain more followers, increase interaction, and also helps your images easier to find by people looking for specific images and tags. A perfect example is Nike’s photo below; it utilizes the company’s tagline “Just Do It.”

Hint: Avoid the overuse of hashtags, especially in Instagram captions. Hashtags help improve visibility, but they can be quite annoying if you put a hashtag on almost every word. Hashtags should only be used on words that are relevant. A good rule of thumb is if there’s no reason for the reader to click on the word, then do not put a hashtag.

11. For SEO purposes, insert strategic keywords in your caption. You can use Google Adwords Keyword Planner, Moz Keyword Explorer, Wordtracker, and other keyword research tools to determine the best keywords. In addition, remember to put the most important words first.

12. Use captions in your blog posts, product descriptions, photo displays as well as your social media accounts.

With these techniques, your photos will have a deeper meaning or a more comprehensive story. Using beautifully written captions is sure to attract and engage your readers.

1. Create an account and post your photos on image bookmarking sites.

Image bookmarking sites such as Instagram, Fotki, Flickr, and Pinterest are very effective in showcasing your work. Don’t forget to put a link to your website from your image bookmarking page.

2. Submit your website link in directories.

Directories such as Reddit, DMOZ, and Hotfrog allow your website to be easily searchable. They do this by organizing links into different categories and subcategories. Thus, users who are looking for websites about photography in web directories may stumble upon your link.

Setting up an account in these directories is easy; just sign up then input your name, email address, and other information needed by the directory. The directories will do the rest. You can also customize directories to auto-update whenever you add new content to your website.

Sites like Houzz, Behance, and Freelancer are great directories for real estate photographers.

Just for reference, here are brief descriptions of the examples of directories as stated above.

* Reddit – allows registered community members to submit text posts and direct links. Registered users can then rank and organize posts by voting submissions.
* DMOZ – a multi-content directory of links. Open content refers to content that others can copy or modify.
* Hotfrog – an Australian web directory that categorizes websites regionally and topically.
* Houzz – an online community of architects, interior designers, decorators, landscapers, handymen, contractors, and of course, real estate photographers
* Behance – a great directory for self-promotion. You can create and display your portfolio here.
* Freelancer – an ideal directory for freelancers to advertise their skills and services. Businesses looking for freelancers look for providers here.

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3. Use social media to promote your website.

Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter are currently some of the biggest social media sites. Take advantage of them by creating accounts for your photography business. Social media not only expands your reach but it also allows you to interact with your market one-on-one. You can also make accounts on other photo-heavy social media sites such as Digg and Tumblr. They are very popular among photographers.

Post images links to articles, announcements, and more on these accounts. Don’t forget to link to these accounts on your website and share them with your target audience to keep them up to date on your latest projects.

Daily posting is highly recommended, but 1 to 2 posts a week will do just fine. Some platforms such as Facebook have features that allow you to automatically schedule the publication of posts.

You can also use tools such as Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to aggregate your social media accounts and posts from one place.

Remember that the number of quality links that you have from trusted sources and social media accounts will definitely help your SEO. They build credibility for your website, your social media accounts, and ultimately, you as a professional.

4. Invite others to submit guest posts.

Inviting photobloggers, manufacturers, and writers to publish a guest post on your website is beneficial. Once you publish their article, they will share the link to their networks. Clicking the link will bring their network to your blog, which drives traffic, increases the number of natural links, and improves your rank in a search engine results page, or SERP.

If you want your photography business to reach new heights, then optimizing your website should be on your must-do list. Check out Part 1 for using keywords correctly and Part 2 for tips in link building. These strategic and effective SEO techniques can get your site in the front line and help establish your business a strong foothold in the competitive realm of online marketing.

How do you get more clients to book you for photography shoots? How do you find the people who need your services? Here are 8 simple and surefire ways to build a name for yourself and increase your number of clients.

1. Build your online portfolio.

Your online portfolio is your most powerful tool that showcases your skills and capabilities to your prospects. In today’s day and age, people begin searching for most any product or service online. Photography is no exception.

Keep digital copies of all projects that you were commissioned to do, and include your best work in your portfolio. If your work is featured in magazines, journals, books, and other publications make sure to add copies of those publications as well. Your portfolio improves your credibility and reputation as a professional photographer.

2. Establish a referral program.

Word-of-mouth is the best form of advertising! Having raving fans and core advocates promoting your business for you can have a tremendous positive impact on your bottom line. It should always be common practice to politely ask your clients to refer you to possible prospects.

In order to take this to the next level, create a referral program where referrers get freebies, discounts, or commissions. If you have done exceptional work for them in the past and the reward is great enough, your clients will be more than happy to refer to you in their networks.

3. Network with people related to the industry.

Establish and maintain connections with professionals who are in the photography industry such as real estate agents, event planners, fashion designers, writers, and more. They are excellent sources of leads, so ask them to refer prospects to you, and make sure you send them prospects in return. Shake hands, meet and mingle, and make sure to bring plenty of business cards! Networking events may not yield results immediately, but by planting seeds early, you will begin to see the return on your investment down the road.

4. Join photography communities/events.

Exhibits, photo walks, seminars, and workshops are excellent opportunities for you to meet potential clients, journalists, and other photographers. Socialize with them, compliment their work, and ask for advice. Make sure your website is up to date, and have business cards ready so you can give them out once people show interest in your work.

Many photographers assist one another on shoots and refer work to one another when they are already booked. Use these communities and events to get out there and get to know other active photographers in your area. It can be fun, and educational and can even lead to more work for you down the road.

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5. Update your website.

Your website is a massively powerful tool when it comes to marketing your business. As a small business owner who may work from home, think of your website as your storefront. Keep in mind that as a business, you want people to pay for your services. As such, your website should convince people why they should hire you over anyone else. The best way to do this is:

1. Show off your best, most compelling photos.
2. Tell your story, and post photos of yourself to build trust.
3. Include a “Call to Action”. Whether you put your pricing online or not is up to you, but what all photographers should do is make a compelling case to contact you for more information. So give them some details, but leave room for them to want and need to contact you.
4. Make it easy to get in touch. List your contact information and social media channels you are active on and respond quickly when people reach out.

6. Use social media to your advantage.

Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are effective tools for reaching your target market. But, before diving into every form of social media, figure out what social media platform your clients are using most. Maybe your clients are most active on Instagram or Pinterest and engage more when being able to like or pin some of your photos. Or, maybe you find it more beneficial to get a large following on Snapchat because your audience is interested in seeing what new projects you’re working on throughout the week.

Social media can be an amazing tool to help you improve and grow your business. But, be careful. Spending too much time on social media or trying to manage too many accounts can become cumbersome and take away from time from your normal day-to-day operations. Use social media wisely, and make sure that you are utilizing social media in a way that makes it a benefit for your business, not a burden.

7. Publish a blog.

Being positioned in the first part of a search engine results page can give you a better chance of getting more prospects. One effective way of doing that is to publish a blog. Write about your business, new service package, and stories that go along with your photos. It is also a good idea to include photography tips and advice. If your blog posts and photos are well done and provide real value, readers will tend to look up to you as a thought leader in your industry and therefore give you more credibility than your competition.

8. Interact.

People like it when service providers personally reply to their inquiries and calls. Interaction makes them feel secure, knowing that there is a person or a human team behind the brand. Prospects will more likely close the deal with you if you are able to reply to their initial inquiry within the first few hours. This being the case, always take time during your day to answer emails, messages, phone calls, and blog and social media comments in order to follow up with potential leads and current clients. Make sure to always follow up and give feedback after you have completed a project. A wise woman once said to me, “Your fortune is in your follow-up.”

What is the common denominator of all these 8 tips? Yes, you guessed it. It’s all about connecting with people and building relationships. Business, in general, is all about relationships and how you manage them. Find ways to provide true value to your clients and treat them with respect and honesty and the rest will take care of itself.