If your goal is to grow your following, earn customers, and get repeat sales, steer clear of the following things that could very well irritate everyone.
1. Filling your Followers’ Feeds with LOTS of Posts All at Once
It might be convenient for you to upload two or three or ten pictures at once on Instagram, but it’s not very considerate to your followers, and it doesn’t serve you well. Yes, it’s your Instagram, and you can post whenever you want. However, if you’re using Instagram for business, there needs to be a balance between how much you want to post and how often your followers want to see your work.
What do the numbers tell us? Well, the more pictures you post at a time, the less likes the subsequent photo gets. If you post two photos back-to-back, the first photo almost always gets more likes and the second photo gets less. On Intagram, people like to see a variety of photos from different people. You can share what you love and make a great experience for your followers by scattering your photos throughout the week or do one earlier in the day and one later in the day. Test, and see what works the best for your growing following.
2. Posting Photos of a Client without Permission
I see three big problems with this. It’s rude, it can be illegal, and you miss an opportunity.
- First, you need to be respectful. Not every senior or family you photograph will want their photos shared on social media. It can also rub them the wrong way if you don’t ask.
- Second, if you don’t have a waiver to use their picture for advertising purposes online or offline, you can get yourself into trouble.
- And last, you shouldn’t miss an opportunity to reach out to your client because they might want to help you even more than you intended. For example, if you let a senior you photographed know that you’d like to share their photos on Instagram, they might get really excited and want to be tagged, and post it to their own network, and tag you, and post it to their Facebook, and tweet it.
3. Posting a Commercial Shoot
This may seem like a no brainer. You shouldn’t post anything from a commercial shoot without permission. A lot of the time, the shoot is confidential because they don’t want their competitor knowing what they are doing, or it could interfere or hurt their product launch. However, when you arrive to set, you might be really excited about how everything is looking and want to take a picture. In which case, ask if it is okay, or wait to post the picture as a #latergram after the advertisement has published.
4. Mixing Up your Business Account with your Personal Account
This can be super embarrassing and happens sometimes. It’s even cost some people their jobs or their business. Always check which account you are using, and if you’re ranting about something, think thrice.
5. Always Posting about Yourself
Follow the same rule you would at a cocktail party, so you don’t come off as conceited or boring. Don’t always talk about yourself. Share other relevant posts and blogs that you didn’t create on Twitter and Facebook. Start creating an experience for your audience.
If you want to learn how to use social media to get work and create a plan, sign up for our Business Coaching Class, starting September 3, 2014. We’ll teach you how to create a target list or audience and connect with these people online.
Video Transcription
– Hey, Jay P. , did you see my Instagram post in the last ten minutes? Oh my gosh, look. That’s the shoot I just did. And that’s my baby. And that’s another shoot I did last week. That’s my other baby. Oh, that’s a really bad rash that I had. It was pretty nasty. Oh, and look.
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Hi, this is Jay P. Morgan. – And I’m Adelaide Lawren. And today we’re talking about five ways to piss people off on social media. – I would never say that word. – He wouldn’t. So I had to say it. So our first way is filling your photos and people’s Instagram feeds or filling your statuses and their news feeds. – Not understanding the etiquette of how often to post is just bad. – Yes – Bad etiquette. – And also, it doesn’t serve you if you post, you know, three Instagram photos at once, you’ll looks and your likes will be less and less on each one, because people don’t wanna go and like them. And they get annoyed. And, I mean, quite frankly, I unfollow people who post way too much. – Yeah. You got to have a pacing that makes sense. And, you know, you can certainly plan it, to be able to send your posts out, so that they get a nice timing between each posting. But you need to make sure that you’re not posting too often and you’re posting good content and not too often. – Yes. I agree.
And then our second way to piss people off is posting a photo of a client without their permission. Like a senior portrait or a baby. – We have on our release the permission, when they sign the release, to be able to post the images of our clients, whether it’s a commercial shoot or a portrait, we have the permission to use it in social media. And we make sure that we have that right before we ever get started. We sign the model releases when they walk in, not when they’re done, when they’re done with the shoot. Do it first thing. – Yeah. Before you even shoot. – Before you start. – I like that. So then our third way to really– – Here, let me just say it. Let me say the third way. – OK. – OK.
So our third way is posting a commercial shoot before the client gives you authorization. If you’re shooting a picture for a client and it’s their new ad that’s coming out and someone grabs a screenshot over your shoulder of the image that’s coming up and then tweets it out, you’ve just released the client’s image before the client has released their ad. That is really bad form and it actually can get you in a lot of trouble with some clients. – A lot of trouble. Especially if their competitors wanna know what they’re doing. There’s so many reason why you just– – Yeah. – You can’t do that. That’s horrible. – So you need to ask your clients, “Is it OK. ” If we’re doing this shot for Pampers, never shot for, actually I did shoot for Pampers once, but if you’re shooting this shot for, you know, — – Love Pampers. – Pampers, or for McDonalds, you have to make sure that they’re going to allow you to tweet things out and to show images. A lot of times blog posts and that, you have to wait ’til the actual ad comes out before you can show it in any of your social media.
– Yes. Now onto the fourth way. The fourth way, oh, this happens quite often, which is really sad, is mixing up your business account with your personal account. A lot of people have been fired at big companies for doing this because they want to complain about something and they complain about it on the business one. Those things happen. And also, kind of, in that area, is posting too many personal photos that people can’t really relate to that. I think it’s OK to post one every so often, because people wanna see your personal life, but it’s, you know, if it’s all about your personal life and not about the photo strategy that you’re using on Instagram, then it’s not serving you well. People can’t really connect to that. – It becomes way too personal in a more public or a more business setting and it just doesn’t help you look professional, it doesn’t help you to grow. Now there are some variations on this thought that some people can get away with. You know, there’s a lady I know who, she posts a lot of personal thoughts about her life, but they’re very, they’re more in a philosophical, kind of, point of view. And they’re very uplifting and you find strength to them. And I think it really serves her and her market. So I think, but you just need to be– – That makes sense. – very careful, you know. My latest rash probably doesn’t fall in that category.
– And so, speaking of my rash, the fifth way to piss people off is always posting about yourself. Now, in marketing, we talk about having the “cocktail rule”. So when you’re at a cocktail party, if you’re just talking about your life to everybody the whole time, you kind of start getting further and further away from people and you’re all alone. But if you’re sharing other people’s stories and you’re talking and listening to the other people, then you are really a part of the group and talking. And it’s the same thing on social media. So, like, with your Facebook, it’s not just posting all of your blog posts, but it’s sharing other blog posts that are relevant to your target market. – You know, it’s the old L. A. rule, “You know enough about me, let’s talk about you. What do you think of me?” – Yes. – It’s not that. It’s sharing stuff that’s gonna be relative and not making it so much about you all the time. And it’s important, I found it’s extremely important when I do a shoot, a huge shoot, and you’ve got talent that’s done a great job, and makeup people that done a great job, and you’ve got an incredible set that someone’s built and put together, and you talk about how “All that you’ve done,” and “All I’ve done,” and all of that, you know, it’s important to make sure that other people who are involved are also credited, that they, you give them the kind of recognition for the things they’ve done.
– I like that. What I also like is our business coaching class is starting September 3rd. – And it does not have a rash. – No, it does not have a rash. Is rash free. And this is– – Rash free business coaching class, September 3rd. – In our class, we are gonna teach you how to choose a social network that’s right for you, a way in which you can engage your audience, get people to your website, your website set up in a way that you can actually get these sales, and then you can engage them further to get repeat sales. So, if you want to grow your business, then this class is for you. – Whether you’re a mom just working at home and want to work out of your home office and work there, a young studio, even an advanced studio, this is really a place where you can come relearn the fundamentals, strengthen yourself, and move forward in a manner that’ll help you to get in step with what’s going on in the social media world out there and help you to get back into the photography business. – Let’s do it.