Is Social Media helping photographers?

Is social media helping your business, or is it simply wasting your time? The truth is, most people don’t have any idea. Bringing your business into social media is easy, but getting something out of it requires more than just keeping in touch with family and friends. Find out how we have employed social media in recent times and how you can leverage that knowledge for your own business too.


Let’s face the facts!

Even with all the buzz of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and now Google+, most photographers still don’t know what to do with it. They’ve got a Facebook account because they’ve been told everyone is doing it!

They hear that a whole world of new customers are there, waiting for them. It’s a new, great, easy, and cheap way to market themselves. But are they really getting results?

From January 2012, The BraveShooters Network will be releasing free monthly guides and blueprint produced by our Research Department. In the guides, issues like the effective use of social media will be thoroughly examined and explained.

However, we wanted to you to have a deeper understanding of how these social media tools work by using some real-world examples like the ones below:

We’ve noticed that there are two camps of photographers using social media: those who use it effectively and are seeing real results, and those who don’t really know why they’re wasting so much time on something that doesn’t seem to be working. The difference between these two groups is one simple thing: the understanding that social media is a tool, and not a marketing magic bullet or a get-rich-quick wand.

Simply put, photographers who use it successfully understand that they still need to do the work, and these tools aren’t going to do it for them. We also noticed that these photographers had a greater sense of self. They know what their specialties are, and what they love to shoot. They are fully aware of what makes them different. They tend to identify with a group, or “tribe”, in real life, and social media is simply a tool that helps them connect with other members of their own tribe.

Timmy Davies is a lead shooter on the BraveMoments Photgraphy team in Lagos, Nigeria. He uses Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn (even Blackberry Messenger) as marketing tools for the business. He specializes in event photography (social/corporate events, birthday parties, and business networking events.) and celebrity photography.


He uses Twitter to connect mainly with other photographers. Facebook (www.facebook.com/bravemoments) is a place where he and his back-office support team initiate dialogs with people with the goal of establishing a trusting relationship with existing and potential clients. LinkedIn, he says, is a regular source of assignment work. He uses BBM to advertise and connect with potential clients, fans and other photographers.

(The image on the right, of a beer and glass at a Fashion Show, Polo Club Ikoyi, is an image that came from an assignment generated via a connection on BBM)

Timmy uses social media to communicate with a diverse audience, people in corporations with a need for portraiture work, marketing companies, brand experts, other photographers, and people/models interested in photography.

His plan (and BraveMoments' culture) involves establishing lasting relationships with people, and for those relationships to bring referrals and paying assignments. Even his social media relationships with photographers are viewed this way — he will routinely refer clients to other photographers, especially members of the exclusive BraveShooters Network, if he feels they will be better served.

From a client relationship perspective, working with a great brand like BraveMoments, being well-connected, honest, and solution-oriented makes people more likely to consider him as their go-to guy for any photography needs.

To contact BraveMoments Photography, please call: +234-1-7317575