5 Important Steps to Success on LinkedIn for Photographers

One of the most common questions photographers ask me is “How good is LinkedIn for photographers?”.

Well, a simple answer to that question is, it’s pretty amazing.

Using LinkedIn for photographers’ services, whether it be headshot photography, personal branding, wedding photography or portraiture, can produce some fantastic results, and you don’t need a premium LinkedIn account to succeed.

As a LinkedIn Live Influencer, my most recommended social platform is LinkedIn for photographers who are wanting to promote their photography business, just take a look at some of the statistics below.

10 Reasons Why LinkedIn for Photographers is The No1 Marketing Platform for your Photography Business.

• Linkedin is the biggest professional networking platform in the world, with over 700 million users.
• Every second 2 new LinkedIn users sign-up to the platform, it’s growing fast.
• The average wage earner on LinkedIn tops $85k PA; these are people with money.
• 41% of Millionaires use LinkedIn, say no more!
• Less than 10% of the platform are actively creating content, low competition and it’s easier to be seen.
• Around 60% of users fall into the 25-35 age group, think weddings and family photography too.
• You don’t need a premium LinkedIn account or LinkedIn ads to find clients.
• Less than 50 million of its users have fully optimised profiles, get yours optimised and you’ll really stand out
• People on LinkedIn prefer to do business with people in their network.
• Most photographers on LinkedIn are generalists, when you specialise you stand out and attract your ideal clients.

Creating your LinkedIn Photography Profile

So hopefully reading the list above, that’s given you the push to jump on to LinkedIn and create a LinkedIn photography profile.

One of the most significant factors when it comes to succeeding on Linkedin for photographers is to niche your profile.

Most photographers on LinkedIn create their profiles as a generalist or freelance photographer; however, the majority of LinkedIn users are looking for photographers that understand their needs and are used to working with their business sector.

For example, a business person looking for a new headshot or a personal branding photo shoot is going to be searching out headshot or personal branding photographers on the platform. They want to employ the services of a specialist, someone whose area of expertise is headshots, someone who can confidently create the perfect profile picture that will help elevate their personal brand and professionalism on the platform.

With over 28,000 photographers in my LinkedIn network, I see time and time again that those who succeed and stand out as The Go-To Photographer are those photographers who niche down their services and specialise.

How do You Choose Your LinkedIn Photography Niche?

Choosing your niche can often be narrowed down by either your passion or geographical area.

For example, if you are based in the countryside and it’s 50 miles to your nearest big city, then headshot or corporate branding photography is probably not going to be a realistic niche for you. However, you could look at specialising in hospitality and tourism photography, or hospitality and food photography.

Suppose your real passion is personal branding photography, but you also do wedding photography and portraiture in your studio. In that case, I’d recommend keeping your wedding and portrait photography on Facebook and Instagram, then building your Linkedin profile out as a personal branding photographer.

Over 80% of photographers fail in their first two years in business.

One of the main reasons for this is because most photographers start in business as a generalist.

They try to offer their services to anyone and everyone who needs a photographer. Unfortunately for them, this is where every other photographer positions themselves, and for this reason, the generalist market is completely oversaturated with photographers all battling it out for clients.

By niching down your offering on LinkedIn, you’ll be moving yourself away from the pack, and you’ll separate yourself from the masses by positioning yourself as a specialist in your field. Remember that specialists find it easier to command higher fees for their services because their services suit their client’s needs perfectly.

Marketing on LinkedIn for Photographers

Marketing on LinkedIn for photographers doesn’t have to be complicated, and it doesn’t need to incur any expenses, you just need to be consistent and show up on the platform every day.

There’s a saying in marketing “People buy from people they know, like and trust” this could never be more true when it comes to marketing on LinkedIn for photographers. The key to success is not to sell but to build relationships.

Have you ever heard of Social Selling, it’s basically selling without the selling if that makes sense.

The more you connect with potential clients and the more you post to the platform, the sooner you’ll become known, liked and trusted. If you want to ruin someone’s trust just start turning on the sales posts, nothing puts people off more than a connection who’s always trying to sell. Just take a look at the Clipping Path and SEO companies on LinkedIn that continuously bombard us, photographers, with spam messages, hack our posts and even start sending us Facebook friend requests. The last thing we want to do is engage in business with these companies because their approach is entirely wrong.

You can’t try and sell to someone until they know you, they like you, and you’ve earned their trust. It’s like asking a Tinder date to marry you on the second message.

Connect, Post and Engage on LinkedIn

I’ve grown a vast network myself on LinkedIn for my photography mentoring business just by connecting with my ideal clients, and photographers, posting helpful and inspiring daily content and engaging in conversations.

Where a lot of photographers go wrong on LinkedIn is they start connecting with other photographers and posting content as if they were talking to a fellow photographer.

LinkedIn For Photographers – Connecting with the right people

Firstly you need to be connecting with your ideal clients; if you’re a headshot photographer based in London, then you’ll want to be connecting with entrepreneurs, accountants, legal firms, coaches and other business owners in your geographical area who would benefit from your services.

Think of who your ideal clients are. When I say ideal, I mean the ones who don’t simply buy on price alone. Target the type of client who values your photography and will pay a premium for a quality professional service.

I have several headshot and branding photographers I work with who aim their services directly at a particular industry because they know this industry values their work. For example, one photographer specialises in headshots for the banking and legal industry, and another photography targets the medical and pharmaceutical industries.

LinkedIn For Photographers – Always connect with a message

Each month I receive 100’s and 100’s of connections requests on LinkedIn, and from those, less than 1% will personalise their request to connect with a message. If you want to stand out and be noticed, then you must send a connection message every time you request to connect.

Connection messages are limited to just 300 characters, so you need to be brief and to the point. Never try and sell in a connection message and always personalise it with the person’s first name and maybe tailor it to their industry too. Tell them what you do and how you can be of benefit to them, for example:

“Hi, David,

My name is Steve, I’d love to connect and hear more about your business.
I’m a Food & Hospitality Photographer based in London. I help hotel owners like yourself increase their online guest bookings with attention-grabbing, high-impact photography.

Thank you, Steve”.

LinkedIn For Photographers – Posting the right content

LinkedIn is NOT like Instagram; it’s a platform for telling stories and building relationships, not just posting an image with a load of hashtags and your camera settings. Remember you’re posting content that will be of interest to your ideal clients, and you’re not posting for the benefit of other photographers.

A great way to tell stories on LinkedIn is to think “Who, What, Where, When and Why”. Who’s in the image, what are they doing, where was it taken, when and why was it taken. People love stories, and it’s a fantastic way to really boost your engagement on the platform.

Always start your post with a headline, something that will draw the reader in. Then finish your post with a question, when you ask a question it’s like you’re asking for the engagement and people will comment. The more comments you receive, the wider your post will reach on the platform.

Imagine you’re a food photographer and you’ve posted an image from a cake-shoot you did for a local bakery. At the end of the post you could say something like “and this was undoubtedly the nicest carrot cake I’ve ever tasted, so what’s YOUR favourite cake, I’d love to know.”

Be sure to respond to every comment you receive it’s a fantastic way to build relationships and get to know people, plus every comment you make helps further the engagement on your post. You can even reply with a question to also engage your followers deeper.

Many of the photographers onboard my mentoring program say that daily posting and engaging on LinkedIn is often their most significant action that leads to new clients. The more people see you in the newsfeeds and get to know you the more you’ll be front of mind when they come to need a photographer or someone in their network is asking for recommendations of a photographer.

When it comes to posting consistency is most definitely key. The total monthly content on LinkedIn is produced by less than 5% of its users, just 30 minutes a day of posting and engaging can make a massive difference to your success. With so few photographers actively posting and even fewer posting correctly, it won’t take long before you start seeing the benefits. Just make sure you are consistent and try to post at least four times a week during the times when your followers are most active. This is usually between 7.30 am, and 9 am, lunch breaks and between 5 pm and 6 pm.

LinkedIn For Photographers – Engage with others content

LinkedIn itself is a social media platform that is driven by discussion, yes you can spend all day looking for “Likes” on your post, but “Likes” never amount to much. It’s the comments that help build relationships and also spikes the algorithm in your favour. The more comments you can drive to your content, the greater the reach of your post.

LinkedIn also rewards users who actively engage on the platform. Conversations are a two-way thing, and LinkedIn understands it can’t just have a newsfeed field with posts and no discussions. It’s conversation and the comments that keep people active on the platform for longer.

So when you comment on other people’s posts on LinkedIn, the algorithm sees you not just as a content creator but as a valuable engager too. The more you comment on other people’s content the more the algorithm will favour your profile when you come to create your own content. When you comment on another person’s posts, you’re in effect helping their post gain more traction but also helping yourself too.

If you’re going to comment, especially if it’s on a post from someone you’d like to potentially do business with, then make sure you read the post and comment on the content. Maybe ask a question or give your feedback or opinion, something more than just a simple “Nice Post” or “Great Work”. Some of the best business relationships I’ve formed on LinkedIn have started because of a well-thought-out comment or a discussion that originated on another user’s post.

LinkedIn for Photographers – Building a Killer LinkedIn Photography Profile

Once you combine the above steps with a fully optimised LinkedIn profile, then you’ll be well on your way to building a great network and turning your connections into paying clients on LinkedIn.

I’d thoroughly recommend you check out my free resources page which has some great podcast interviews covering the ins and outs of building a killer LinkedIn Photography Profile.

In addition to these resources, I’ve written a step-by-step guide to growing a vast wealth network as a photographer on LinkedIn. You can find my book “The Photographers Missing Link-edIn” on Amazon here.

As always if you do have any questions, please get in touch and connect with me on LinkedIn too at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffbrownphotographymarketing/