Just like the wedding photography industry, social media is constantly evolving. It seems like every week there are updates and adjustments to the various platforms (some of them are great and some require you to modify your strategy). One thing is for sure – social media (including photography ads) is an essential part of the marketing strategy you use for your photography business.
Photography Ads
As a wedding photographer, platforms like Instagram and Facebook are ideal for you. They allow you to share your content and images with large audiences, which helps you drive traffic to your website and blog. Even better, both platforms allow you to share content with specific audiences made up of ideal clients. Instagram and Facebook ads are valuable tools to focus your marketing efforts on and receive the maximum benefit.
Here at ShootDotEdit, we are an online photo editing company that serves professional wedding photographers. In addition to our editing services, we connect with industry leaders to bring you relevant information on topics that are most important to your photography business.
Since there are plenty of ways to set up ads, as well as photography ads examples, we partnered with wedding photography duo Jesse and Becky Morquecho of Idealust. In an Online Training with them, Jesse and Becky shared their insights into what works in regard to building ads that convert clients. Here are a few tips to help you create effective (and profitable) Instagram and Facebook ads.
How to Create Effective Ads
Because Instagram and Facebook use native advertising, you have the ability to create wedding photography ads that can look like non-paid or non-ad content. To find success, produce content that is relevant and encourages engagement. When you encourage comments or shares on your ads, Instagram and Facebook will actually make it less expensive for you to get in front of more people. The platforms promote the content their users want to see, which is encouragement enough to ensure what you share is relevant and valuable. Also, keep in mind that the more engagement your ads receive, the more people will respond and want to learn more about you.
Incorporate Your Personality
As you create Instagram and photography Facebook ads, ensure you incorporate your personality. When you showcase more of who you are, you connect more with your ideal clients and your click-through rates and engagement have a higher chance of increasing. With every ad you create, write in the first person and ask questions to encourage curiosity and dialog from your followers. Also, after a photo editor service color corrects your photos, include your best images with advertisements on Instagram and Facebook.
Since posts with images are of the most engaging on Facebook (and Instagram is an image-based platform), including a photo of you will make your ad look like it belongs and you can avoid it looking like an advertisement. Mix up the images you use and even incorporate past wedding photos to showcase your work.
Image by Jesse and Becky Morquecho
One thing to consider is to switch your profile photo from a logo to your headshot. If someone sees your ad and that you have a logo, it could be an instant giveaway that you are just trying to promote your business. When you use your headshot for your profile photo, you build trust with your audience. Plus, your page will be on brand from your cover image design to your logo, to the text and images you provide.
Target Warm Audiences
With the advanced targeting methods for wedding photographers on Instagram and Facebook, you can market to people who like your page, friends of people who like your page, or even upload a list of your current client’s emails and create an audience from that. There are options to allow you to target people who have recently viewed any page on your wedding photography website.
Think about it this way: when you shop on Amazon and leave without making a purchase, you will likely see the product advertised to you at a later point. You can do the same thing for your website by copying and pasting the tracking pixel code Facebook provides you on your website, and you can start targeting that audience. This is something to set up now, even if you do not use it quite yet in your advertising campaigns on social media. That way, when you do start using it, Facebook will already have profiled the people who viewed your website and then you can make your wedding photography Facebook ads more effective.
Target Cold Audiences
In addition to targeting warm audiences, you should also get in front of people who have yet to hear of you and your wedding photography business. With your Instagram and Facebook ads, you can target by specific demographics. The great part of this for you as a wedding photographer is you can target only people who are engaged (better yet, you can target people who have been engaged for 0-3 months, 0-6 months, or up to a year). That means you only have to pay to share your content with those who are your ideal client.
Other details you can target by are age, gender, location, and any additional information you know about your ideal client, and you can create an audience based on what they like or their interests. With all this data, you can take any combination to build the perfect audience so you are targeting the right people.
Creating effective photography ads on Instagram and Facebook for your business is key to helping you attract clients and book more weddings. Use these Facebook ads for photographers tips to build audiences perfect for your business and then track their progress. Make adjustments as necessary to ensure your efforts are well-spent. Learn additional tips and tricks from the pros on how to maximize your reach on Facebook and hashtags you can use for your Instagram business account with our Guide to Social Media for Wedding Photographers. Click the banner below to download the guide today!
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