Here’s How You Can Promote Your Photography Business Online
By Sandra Iakovleva, Blogger at Depositphotos
A photography business isn’t easy to sustain, especially when you feel like you’re already doing everything that is required of you. Your portfolio is just the starting place. On top of putting together a body of work that reflects your aesthetics and your specialty, you’ve got promotion to worry about.
Suppose your portfolio is perfect as it is. What are the next steps to promoting your work? Photographers have to have go-to tools and channels to really be able to share their art with the world, get feedback, connect to a wider community of photographers and expand their business.
Successful Photography Business Essentials
Let’s break down your tasks into bite sized pieces. There are a few things you have to take care off before you go off promoting your work. If you don’t have your essentials ready to go and presentable, promoting yourself and your work will be time down the drain.
A well curated portfolio. Your portfolio can’t just be a dumpster of all your images that you think are excellent. A well curated portfolio takes clients on a journey so they have a better understanding of your style and your specialty. Find more tips on improving your portfolio in our blog.
A personal website. This is an important component for any business, no matter how small. A personal website is another way to promote your work outside of your portfolio and reach clients so they can contact you if they’re interested in your services. Many of the websites on our list require a link back to your portfolio to make you discoverable.
A blog (optional). A blog can be a time consuming part of your business and is in no way a necessity. However, having a blog helps drive traffic to your website and is another way to reach out to potential clients and give them a chance to get to know you, your style and keep up with your work.
A general idea of your marketing goals. You have to come prepared if you want to dominate the online space. Understanding your goals will help you take the necessary steps to advance and grow your business. You can learn more about quick marketing tips here.
What to Look Out For in a Photography Website for Sharing and Promotion
A good photography promotion website can also serve as a photo storing space. This means you can upload your best images and have them safely stored on a platform. Here are some basic things you should keep in mind when choosing a website.
- Shareability. It’s really important that the website you choose makes it easy for you to share your work in case you need to send some of it to clients. You should have the options of sharing your collection on popular media such as Facebook, Google +, Instagram and others.
- Space. You need to be able to store your photographs depending on the size of your portfolio. Different websites have different storage allowances so get to know the basics before you upload your work.
- Accessibility. You should be able to easily upload photos, edit them and curate your portfolio as you wish. Pay attention to what each website gives you in terms of accessibility and utility.
- Quality control. That’s right, you’re your best quality control. Make sure the website you choose allows you to keep the high resolution quality of your photographs, otherwise there is no point in promoting sub par work.
- Audience. The website you choose must give you the right to ‘spread the word’ about your photography business. Choose a website that has a community of creatives that can help further promote your work within the website and outside of it. Find a platform that attracts the kind of people you’d like to reach and choose a website that will help you build a credible reputation.
10 Places to Promote Your Photography Online
There are hundreds of possible places to promote your work online. We won’t go into the obvious media where you can promote your work such as Instagram, Google +, Facebook and other popular social media sites. We’ll be looking at alternative options so that you can tap into the creative industry and promote your work within creative communities.
1. SmugMug
SmugMug is a website focused on the creative community and offers a simple and stylish platform to host your work. It is not a free website, it costs about $5.99/month or $39.99/year to host your images. It’s not an expensive option considering the fact that you can have unlimited storage for photos and videos and a few useful and simplified editing tools.
2. PhotoShelter
PhotoShelter is one of the most popular photography websites and reaches out to a really large, international photography community. You can upload your images and even sell them on the website.
3. Flickr
Millions of people are using Flickr for inspiration and professional goals. Photographers and other creatives use it to promote their works within the community and beyond. This website also has some advanced features that others do not have. It has a very active and engaged community and people visit to explore pictures and even rate them.
4. Pinterest
Pinterest is only growing in popularity and remains one of the go-to websites for inspiration for creatives all over the world. It’s a social network in its own so you can create boards and pin your images to make them discoverable. Make sure you link back to your website or portfolio so clients can find you.
5. Behance
If you’re looking to become a part of a community of creatives, Behance is a great option. Behance is an online community of professionals and creatives from many industries. If you have photography projects that you would like to share seperately, you can create folders and present your works on a project basis.
6. Photography Talk
Photography Talk is a leading website with thousands of visitors on a daily basis. The photography community hangs out on major platforms like this one and gives you the option of learning from other photographers and getting feedback on your work.
7. Pixpa
Pixpa can become like an extension of your portfolio. It is a website that does just that, help you build a portfolio and share your work with other creatives and visitors to the website.
8. Exposure
As the name has it, here’s where you get your exposure. Talented photographers have the opportunity to showcase their work. It’s a relatively new website but has attracted lots of photography professionals and artists that share a common interest of displaying their work.
9. About Me
About me was not originally designed for photographers but it does make it really easy for people to learn more about you, your specialty and see your work on the website. About Me offers you statistics about your website visitors, what they click on and their location. This is a great place to add links to your website.
10. Depositphotos
Once you upload your portfolio to Depositphotos and become a contributor, you can share links to your portfolio with your potential clients. Depositphotos has a large community of fellow photographers and if you’re successful, it’s a great way to make a name for yourself in the photography community. You can create your own collections of images and share them with fellow photographers and clients.
This story was originally published at blog.depositphotos.com
