Instagram for photographers: learn how to create a professional profile

Arcadina-instagram-portada

13 Sep 2022

Social media can be very useful when it comes to helping you attract clients and especially Instagram for photographers. This very visual social network is becoming a fantastic showcase to showcase your best photos and for your ideal client prototype to see them and discover you.

If you want to know how to use Instagram for photographers as part of your client acquisition strategy, in today’s article we’re going to explain all the elements you need to take into account to have a professional Instagram account.

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“Learn how to use Instagram for photographers and take advantage of all the visibility this network gives you to promote client acquisition.”

Instagram for photographers, make the most of your professional profile!

Instagram for photographers is the future and the present and although at first, it may seem complicated to use this social network to find clients, if you know how to make the most of it, we assure you that it will help you to give much more visibility to the publications of your photographs.

In this Instagram for photographers article we are going to explain why it is important to use a professional account and how you can set it up to get the most out of this social network that is so popular among photographers.

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Why should you switch from a personal to a professional profile on Instagram?

Without a doubt, moving from a personal account to a professional one is the first step you should take to make your Instagram profile look like a stable business account rather than the profile of an amateur photographer.

This could be one of the reasons why we recommend you to use a professional profile on this network, but the truth is that the most important reason to give you this recommendation is that with a professional profile you will be able to carry out many more actions that will benefit your photography business than if you have a personal account.

Whether you’re going to use Instagram for organic reach or online advertising on the app, having a professional profile on Instagram for photographers will give you access to a wide range of tools and features for businesses and will be the perfect way to humanise your brand.

>> Branding for photographers: learn how to create your own personal brand

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Advantages of having a professional profile on Instagram

In this article we are going to explain all the utilities of the Instagram dashboard for professionals and we already tell you that, as its name suggests, all these benefits will only be available for professional Instagram profiles.

But first let’s share with you some more advantages if you use Instagram for professional photographers.

Instagram algorithm for photographers

Until relatively recently, Instagram’s algorithm only took into account the number of posts, i.e. timing. And it only valued the most recent posts. This has changed, now it takes into account engagement and interactions, comments and likes.

Encouraging your audience to engage will increase your visibility. You can use Instagram stories to do polls or question rounds to encourage users to interact more with these types of posts.

Increase engagement

On Instagram it is very easy to interact, which is why it is the social network where users generate the most engagement with brands. Whether through likes or comments, consumers continuously seek visual impact to interact with their favourite brands.

Take advantage of your Instagram business profile to use hashtags that will help you generate more engagement.

Generate more traffic to your website

The professional Instagram profile will also help you increase visibility, which translates into more traffic to your photography website and therefore better organic positioning.

As an idea you can share your blog posts. Either by sharing the link in your bio, in posts or in stories. This way we are sure that new users will come to your website.

Create a closer and more human brand

The current trend is to share the human side of your photography brand on social media. To achieve this you can:

  • Publish part of your photo shoots.
  • Before and after images.
  • Or the ‘making of’ some of the photographs.

The idea is that you make public everything that can make your audience feel that you are real and approachable.

Get to know your audience

Instagram is also going to take your audience into account, so in the Explore tab, you can find data on what content generates the most engagement or what kind of posts your audience is most interested in.

The idea is that you have a better understanding of the tastes and interests of the people who interact with your brand and then use this information to your advantage to create content that interests your audience.

Online advertising

On Instagram for photographers you can also promote your photography services. These types of posts will help you reach more people interested in your photography.

Learn how to set up your Instagram profile for photographers

Instagram continues to innovate for businesses, brands and content creators. So if you are a photographer or videographer and you want to use this social network to get more visibility, you will be interested to know how the Instagram dashboard for professional photographers works.

Here we are going to give you all the steps to turn your personal profile into a professional one:

  • Go to your personal Instagram profile and go to the settings section.
  • On this screen you will see that there are several configuration options. At the bottom you will find the option “Switch to company profile”.
  • When you select it, you will be asked for a phone number, email and location so that users who reach your profile will find a series of data to contact you.
  • In this step you will also be able to link to your Facebook Fan Page.

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By now you will have created your professional Instagram account, now you can make it even more professional by completing a series of fields that you have to take into account:

  • Name of the profile.
  • User name.
  • Link to your photography website.
  • Biography.
  • Your profile picture.
  • Story highlights.

Let us look at each of these in a little more detail.

Profile name

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instagram.com/arcadina

In the profile name is where you will be able to write the name of your brand. This field will allow you to use up to 30 characters, so you can include a keyword that makes it clear who you are and what you do.

For example, Arcadina | Wedding Photographers. The name field is included by Instagram in searches, so adding a keyword will increase your visibility.

User name

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The username can be different from the profile name. In this field you will have to create your Instagram identity and it will be part of your profile URL.

It is important that the username you choose for Instagram is unified with that of the rest of your company’s social networks and more specifically with the one you use on Twitter or Facebook, as the format will be the same (@name).

This detail will be essential for users to identify you quickly in any social network.

>> Looking for a name for a photographer? Find out what creative naming is here

Link to your photography website

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Instagram will give you the possibility to place a link that will be visible in your biography. This will be the only link on Instagram that will work if the user clicks on it.

You can modify this link as many times as you want, so it is very useful to include information that is more up to date, for example: a temporary photo shoot, a new blog post or a temporary offer.

Instagram biography for photographers

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Your biography will be the first thing your visitors will see when they enter your Instagram profile for photographers, so it is important that it explains in a few words who you are, what you do and what your speciality is.

In this short explanation you won’t be able to go on for long (maximum 160 characters), so be brief, precise and don’t forget to include a link to your website or blog so that your potential clients can access a place where they can find more information about your services and contact you.

You can use emojis 😀  to make the biography more visual and to emphasise some services.

Profile picture

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For this section, you can choose a photo of yourself or your main work. And if you have a company logo, you can also put it on social networks to get that unity in all your social profiles that we talked about before.

Story Highlights

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Highlights are a kind of very visual folders that will appear just below your biography and will make your profile much more eye-catching.

The highlights will give you the possibility to transmit your brand image beyond the logo or the profile images. You can include several highlights with different themes: sessions, news, articles, etc.

Further optimise your Instagram profile for photographers

In addition to all the recommendations we have given you in the previous section to set up your professional Instagram profile for photographers, you can still do some more actions to improve it. Here we are going to give you 5 more tips that you can follow to improve your posts on this social network.

1# Find out when the best time to publish is

It’s important to research your audience to find out the best times to post your photos on Instagram.

There are all kinds of studies on the best times for each social network, but as we said a moment ago, the ideal and most effective thing to do is to know your audience well in order to know for sure at what times they will be most active on the networks.

Knowing this type of data will increase the likelihood that they will see your new posts and therefore increase your list of followers.

>> Do you really know the profile of a photographer’s ideal client?

2# Frequency of your publications

We know that you have many fronts open in your photography business: attending to clients, doing shoots, dedicating time to your website and blog, posting on social media, etc. But if you manage to organise your time and post regularly on Instagram for photographers, you’ll manage to keep your audience’s interest and you won’t lose followers.

It is true that you should not oversaturate them with too many publications, nor bore them. The best thing to do is to publish constant and regular posts of a certain quality. If you have several photographs, it is more advisable to publish them in doses instead of posting them all at the same time.

You can also use Instagram stories and use them several times a day. In contrast to posts, here you can feel more free to show any kind of news.

3# Quality content

The most important thing when creating Instagram posts is to provide quality visual content to show that you are good at your job. We recommend that you don’t use Instagram filters for your work photos, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use them when posting occasional, more casual day-to-day photos.

4# Pay attention to hashtags

In addition to the quality of your photos, it is important that you describe your style of photography well, and this is where hashtags come into play, as they are the easiest way for new followers to find you online.

Keep in mind that these tags have to be related to the photograph, but you can also put some tags that are popular on the social network or that are in fashion at a specific moment.

5# Interaction is also important

Think that Instagram for photographers is a big community and if you actively participate in it, you will probably get more and more followers. That’s why it’s important that they follow you, like your photos and comment on them. But it is also very valuable that you also follow and comment.

If you receive comments on your photos, it is very important that you reply to them, even if it is just by thanking them for the gesture. It is also advisable to reward and encourage your followers, for example, by inviting them to events, with exclusive discounts if they share your publications.

The Instagram dashboard for professionals

The main objective of the Instagram dashboard for professionals is to track the performance of Instagram accounts, access and discover professional tools and explore educational information selected by the network.

This functionality has arisen due to the increase in sales on the main social networks, such as Instagram and Facebook, and as we said at the beginning of this post, it is only available for business accounts and content creators.

Instagram has long since launched badges, the Instagram Store, Instagram Paid and other content tools for brands, and they are now focused on helping content creators and small businesses with these types of tools.

Instagram Ads for photographers

One of the features of Instagram for photographers that will help you get more visibility is the possibility of making personalised ads with different formats.

By optimising the reach and frequency of your ads, you will be able to predict and manage the number of people your publication will reach and the frequency with which your ads will be shown.

Instagram Ads is arguably the platform that generates the highest ROI (return on investment).

The ads are based on images or videos, i.e. multimedia content. In this way, brands can publish different types of ads to promote their products or services in a segmented way for a much lower cost than what we can see on other platforms or social networks.

Steps to using Instagram Ads

The first thing you need to do is to link your Instagram account with your Facebook account in order to start advertising. If you are a Facebook user and are familiar with Facebook Ads campaigns, this will be a piece of cake for you. If not, here are the steps you need to follow to start promoting your posts on Instagram for photographers.

  • Within Facebook’s ad manager click on “create ad” and select an objective for your campaign. Note that some of these aren’t available for Instagram yet, but they’re pretty obvious, so you should have no problem identifying them.

  • Define audience segmentation by: age, location or by interests.

  • Select the budget and choose between the total or daily option. You will also have to define the time you want to show the ad and the location. In this last section you will select ‘Instagram’.

At this point you will only have to configure your ad, and you can choose a publication that you already have in your Instagram feed or create a new one. After choosing all the characteristics of your ad and having filled in the copy and the destination URL, all you have to do is confirm, and that’s it! Your Instagram ad is now created.

Once you have started running your first ads and once you have analysed the results, you can optimise your campaigns.

Arcadina on Instagram

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In case you still don’t follow us on social media, you can find Arcadina on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest and Twitter.

If you take a look at our publications on Instagram, you will be able to keep up to date with the latest news from our blog, you will get to know great photographers and some of their work, if you have your online business with us you will be able to participate in our monthly contest and many other news that we will be launching throughout the months.

Instagram for photographers: use social media to improve your business

As you can see Instagram for photographers can help you create a much closer brand image, it will allow you to show your best work and, most importantly of all. You will be able to create a bond of trust with your potential clients that will become the first step before they visit your photography website and, consequently, become your clients.

In addition to Instagram for photographers, here is more information about which social networks are ideal for photographers and videographers.

>> Social networks for photographers: everything you need to know about them

Before we say goodbye, we would like to share with you the interview with photographer Cristian Soto.

>> ‘Arcadina has everything an image professional needs’, Cristian Soto

And to say goodbye, here’s today’s question: do you use Instagram for photographers professionally or do you only interact on this network in a personal way? We’ll read you in the comments.

Arcadina goes with you

Creativity goes with you, offering you the best service goes with us

Fulfil your dreams and develop your professional career with us. We offer you to create a photography website for free for 14 days so that you can try our platform without any commitment of permanence.

Arcadina is much more than a website, it is business solutions for photographers.

If you have any queries, our Customer Service Team is always ready to help you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We listen to you.

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