The Power of the Picture: How Sharing Photos will boost your Fanbase

Working hard at social media is one thing, working smart is another.  I know countless acts, artists, professionals and business owners who are really great at staying active and engaging with their social media.  But they can’t seem to get likes, retweets, share or repins.  When they come to me to take a look at what they are doing and why they can’t get a bigger engagement it usually comes down to one big hole.  Pictures.  They don’t share pictures. I will often ask them why and I hear the same reasons: I don’t have anything worth taking a picture of and no one wants to see my boring daily routine.  If this were true there would not be over 130 million Instagram users.

I’m not dumbing down the audience, but I am in a way.  People like books with pictures.  People are visually stimulated and are always intrigued by the lives of other people.  We are a fast paced, technology driven society and demand information quick and fast, words aren’t worth reading, but everyone will look at photos.  Next time you are on facebook, take a second and think about why you skipped over a post from your mom, but looked at a photo album of a person you met once at a conference.

So how can you use pictures they right way?

Don’t over think it:  When you try to hard to find the perfect picture it will never turn out the way we hoped.  This is why instagram has all the fancy filters and tools, to make them look interesting.

We love peeks behind the scenes: Take photos of what you see.  It’s not really the content of the photo that people love, but seeing something from someone else’s eyes.  The perfect example of this is when someone posts a picture of them sitting at their computer writing an article, book or working on a piece of music.  (See attached Photo!)  This creates a personal experience that people feel emotionally attached to.  But there are a lot of things you see every day that other people don’t!  I sometimes have to stop and remember I’m in a world class studio with gear that people may never see in their lives!  I have to remind myself to take pictures.

Brand when you can:  A lot of folks may just take a photo of their business logo, sign, card, ANYTHING!  This is a great way to reinforce your brand without even knowing it!

Don’t use too many filters:  Instagram is fun and is a great way to create.  However, remember that using the same one over and over becomes vanilla.  Change it up!  You also don’t have to edit EVERY photo, sometimes a plain photo is good enough.

Use variety:  Just like filters, change up what type of pictures you take.  Take pictures of products, people, behind the scenes just everyday things.  Just make sure you change it up every once in a while.  Have you seen the instagram profiles where people take selfies of themselves and they all look exactly the same?  That’s not a good idea.

Use it as ad space:  You can either just upload a picture of your ad, or even better take a picture of your deal!

Just be careful of what you take of, obviously, don’t take a picture of private information, inappropriate material or defamatory.

Don’t be afraid!  You don’t have to be in it, just take it.  If you are still blocked, just look at what everyone else shares pictures of.  Imitate what you like!

What kind of photos do you like online?