“What should I post to Instagram?” That question is at the center of any strategy you may have as a portrait photographer or wedding photographer for your social media! Today, we’re tackling this question — the second in a 5-part series — all about common Instagram mistakes we see from newer photographers.

 

And as a new photographer, your instinct is almost certainly going to be to post lots of pretty photos that you take. After all, you want to show the world that you really are a good photographer. So lots of professionally-captured imagery makes a ton of sense. But… if you only ever post photos of your clients, new followers may never get to know you as a person, and YOU are the most important part of your business! On the flip side, if you only ever posted personal photos of yourself, followers may never get the opportunity to see you as a talented photographer. 

 

In this blog, we’re going to break down five kinds of photos that every photography Instagram should feature. Although there’s certainly more than five, these are the most important that came to mind! While there’s no perfect ratio of each kind of photo, experiment with your own social media presence and see what gets you traction in your following!

 

 

1. The Obvious: Post Images of Your Clients’ Photo Sessions

Since this is the most obvious, and will probably make up the vast majority of your feed, we’ll talk about client photos first! In case it wasn’t clear, as a photographer, most of your Instagram posts should feature beautiful photos that you took of your clients during their sessions. This will not only make sure that all your followers are 100% clear that you’re a photographer (since you combined your personal and business Instagrams into one, right?!). But this will also showcase your best work. While you may only update your website with new images a few times a year, your Instagram grid can be like a live portfolio of your best work!

 

As you post your own photography work, always choose photos that represent not only your best work, but also the kind of work you want to attract! If you’ve been shooting lots of large 12-person family sessions, but really want to move into exclusively shooting newborns, make sure to heavily feature newborns on your Instagram! The same goes if you want to do seniors, couples, weddings, etc. Since Sarah and I are primarily wedding, engagement and surprise proposal photographers, more than 95% of our professional photos are of couples!

 

 

2. “What Should I Post to Instagram?” Post Professional Images to Announce New Blogs

Okay, this is kind-of cheating since — visually — these photos will follow the same rules as above. However, they serve a totally different purpose. If you have a photography blog like we do where you feature some of your clients’ sessions, you should post to your social media every time you update your blog! This is not only another excuse to fill your feed with beautiful client images, but also makes your clients feel honored and special! They were featured on a professional photographer’s social media! How cool!

 

By the way, if you aren’t blogging right now or are wondering why anyone would still blog in 2024, check this out. This link will bring you to a post from our “Marketing Tactics” series. In it, we spell out how blogging can engage your followers, build you an audience, and boost your SEO (basically, the number of people find you on Google). And it’s totally free! Although it takes discipline to blog each one of your clients’ sessions, we built it into our workflow early in our business, and have booked dozens of weddings from Google for free! If you’re really interested in blogging as a marketing tactic, we talk about it a bunch in our Marketing Workshop for Photographers.

 

 

3. Post Personal Photos of You and Your Life to Increase Engagement

Without fail, when Sarah and I post photos of us, either from a professional session or even just a selfie of us doing life together or making some cool personal announcement, it gets double the interaction as our professional client photos. However, this is likely because these posts are relatively rare. If we posted photos of us every single day, people wouldn’t be quite as excited to get a glimpse of our faces 😂 Although we sometimes let this fall by the wayside in the midst of our busiest months, we try to make sure that at any given time, you can see at least one photo of us on our Instagram grid. So that’s about once every 12 photos!

 

Since you are the #1 thing that makes your photography business different from any other photography business, showcasing you and your personality is extremely important. It’s the best way to differentiate your brand, especially early on when you don’t have lots of third-party validation in the form of client reviews, publication features and awards.

 

Plus, if you combined your personal and business Instagram accounts (like we talked about last week), many of your followers personally know you and care about you as a person! And if you’ve done a good job with branding, even strangers you’ve never met will be highly engaged with you as a person. Not just you as a photographer!

 

 

4. Post Behind-the-Scenes Photos to Hook Followers

If you work with another photographer on portrait sessions or wedding days, it’s easy to get them to capture a few behind-the-scenes photos of you in action. If you don’t, you may have to get creative, and bring a second shooter or an assistant along on a portrait session. Or maybe you can find a way to include some behind-the-scenes images or videos while working on the back-end of your business!

 

These glimpses into the life of a professional photographer may seem ordinary and mundane to you. But if you’re the only photographer on your followers’ feeds, this could be fascinating to them! They’ve never been on the back-end of a wedding day. They have no idea what editing photos looks like. They’ve never been to a styled shoot or on a venue walkthrough!

 

Bonus points if your behind-the-scenes content is really interesting, super unique, or hilarious 😂 Sarah and I accumulate so many BTS photos throughout the year, that we sometimes do an annual blog full of our favorites. Our most recent BTS Blog:Behind the Scenes 2021 is here!

 

 

5. Post Detail Photos to Your Instagram

Although detail photos are technically also client photos, they have a very different content than the photos of your clients themselves. Detail photos can visually break up a grid in a really pleasing way. And especially if you’re a wedding photographer, many couples will be on the lookout for high-end details! Even if you aren’t a wedding photographer, details can still be a beautiful part of your Instagram feed.

 

By the way, we define “detail” photos pretty broadly. We think of them as anything that isn’t an obviously client-focused image! So if you work on-location at scenic outdoor spots, a great landscape shot that you took while your clients were changing into outfit #2 is a great “detail” photo! A close up of the engagement ring is an obvious one, but we’ve even captured details of our seniors’ props during a senior session!

 

 

 

We hope that this blog gave you a lot to think about when it comes to varying your grid, and helped you answer the question, “What should I post to Instagram?”! Next week we’re going to share another common mistake that new photographers make on Instagram, but until then, start thinking about all the photos you’d like to post!

 

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Check out the other segments in this blog series!

• Personal or Business Instagram: Common Instagram Mistakes for New Photographers Part 1
• What Should I Post to Instagram? Common Instagram Mistakes for New Photographers Part 2
• Best Instagram Grid: Common Instagram Mistakes for New Photographers Part 3
• Not Posting to Instagram Consistently: Common Instagram Mistakes for New Photographers Part 4

 

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