With the decline of reach on both Facebook and Instagram, I have started to focus my energy into LinkedIn. When I decide to do something I usually research the best practices and methods first, create a plan, and then get down to business. I am lucky this time though, as I knew a couple of guys who could help me out. I met Maurice Jager two years ago in Germany, and since then we keep bumping into each other in America. Every time I speak to Maurice he advocates the use of LinkedIn, and has given me so many great nuggets of info on how to navigate it successfully. Because of this, I thought there was no better person to explain the benefits of LinkedIn than the man himself. So get a pen and pad ready and take some notes.
LinkedIn? It’s 2019!!!
As photographers, we are living in the best time in history to build and grow a memorable and referable business. We have the ability to get ourselves in front of those we serve on a 24/7 basis through the miracle of social media. Now, living in this time and having access to these marketing channels does not come without its challenges. There is a lot of noise in the social media landscape, with everyone saying the same thing all the time. That’s why it’s essential to have a plan in place in order to cut through all the clickbait, sales funnels and other BS that everyone else is leveraging in their marketing. Although it’s important to build a consistent presence on many social platforms, the best place to implement that plan is by leveraging the power and access that LinkedIn affords us. LinkedIn has become the go-to destination to have professional conversations with professional people. People invest their time on the platform to learn, connect, build communities of advocates and referral partners and generate leads for their businesses. The last time I checked, photographers need all that stuff! The best part? Linkedin’s built-in functionality allows you the ability to hyper-target and find EXACTLY the type of people that you serve and with whom you want to align and grow a partnership, which eliminates a ton of guesswork and time spent. If you already understand who you are, who you serve and why you do what you do, the hard work is already done! Based on that targeted information, you can effectively leverage the search bar on the top of the LinkedIn page – the most important couple hundred pixels on the page!
In that space, you are able to create customized searches on the platform based on your location and the industries in which you serve, and you will have a list of potential clients, referral partners, and advocates staring right back at you, waiting for you to connect. You also can open up the floodgates by hitting the ‘content’ link on the top of the page and find people who actually TALK about topics that you and your audience cares about, and thus, find and connect to like-minded individuals that way. This is a very powerful way to leverage LinkedIn that most photographers don’t even know about! Once you’re connected, you’re then able to engage them through their content, as well as direct message them to start a conversation, which then leads to getting them on the phone. In addition, you also can form a crowd around your page through the content that you share.
What should you talk about?
Establish yourself as the authority in your photographic space in your market by creating compelling content. content that illustrates your expertise, life as a business owner and life as a human being on the planet. Remember that content that you were engaged to get a potential client or referral partners attention? You also can ingratiate yourself to those you want to connect with by sharing their content on your LinkedIn feed, as well. Not only does that make the authors of that work happy, but it also further establishes you as the go-to expert in your photographic space because you’re sharing valuable content from other experts. Building a business around your passion for the work you do behind the camera is an amazing way to spend a life, and we are all very fortunate for this gift. The key is to be able to create a successful business that allows us to focus less on our monthly overhead and more on creating badass work that creates immense value for those we serve. And there is no better place for photographers to achieve this goal than LinkedIn.
