For many years I have had what I consider a strong and successful presence on Social Media:

I have more than 50,000 Followers
All my Social Media Accounts are Verified
Most of my sales happen through Social Media in different forms and way
I am Ambassador for quite a few brands
I have several Paid Posts/Adverts per month
My yearly turnover is above 100,000 per year

I am often asked what is the best way to succeed in Social Media so I decided to prepare a few posts .

Getting yourself set up online with social media is now becoming an absolute necessity for any business, whether based in a physical location or explicitly online. This article will show you how to effectively market your company using this new marketing outlet. It's not as hard as you might think it is.

This post may contain affiliate links that earn me a small commission but come at no extra cost to you.

To use social media marketing successfully you must be creative. The same material, sales, offers, and content will ultimately annoy your customer base to the point that they remove you from their page. Keeping things fresh and interesting makes sure they keep coming back for more, which means more sales.

To get a leg up on the social media marketing of competitors, embrace all forms of social media. Many companies assume that social media has matured and think they only need presence on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to cover their bases. Savvy social media marketers remember that MySpace is still out there. Use it plus rising newcomers like LinkedIn, SlideShare and Google+ to expose yourself where other players are not.

Respond with care to tweets that contain rude or hateful messages. Everything you tweet is a reflection of your business. It may be tempting to shoot back a sarcastic tweet but, that will harm you in the long run. Remain professional and calm when you respond. Remember, the whole world has access to what you tweet.

When deciding how to implement your social media marketing strategies, it is important to take into consideration the nature of your products and services. For example, if purchasing your products is something that most of your customers would prefer to keep private, then do not put Facebook-like buttons right next to the buy buttons! Eventually, someone will click it accidentally and then get angry at your business.

Make sure that your business social media content is fun, interactive, and interesting to read. People who engage in social media sites want to feel compelled to share information that they find. If they share your information, it is to your company's advantage. This is a great way to find new customers and keep the old ones coming back for more.

Keep your Facebook posts regular and consistent. People will look for new content from you when they check in on their Facebook page. If they don't see it regularly, they're likely to forget about you quickly. There are many businesses out there who do post regularly and those businesses are getting the attention of consumers. Make your business one of them.

Run fun and interesting polls on your Facebook page. This is a great way to engage your audience and involve potential consumers. Facebook has an easy to use a feature that can help you with creating polls, so take advantage of it. Polls don't have to be about information directly related to your business. They can be fun, interesting, and involve current events. The point of the poll is to keep consumers interested.

As you can see from this article, while social media can seem intimidating for someone who hasn't spent much time on it, it is really quite simple. As far as marketing goes, social media is actually something that is free and simple enough to do yourself without having to hire a professional.

There are several apps I use on Social Media but two that I use all the time and I would not be able to work without them:

Social Pilot : It is a social media management tool that helps you manage all of your social networking sites including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest and many more. It is the software I use several times a day for my Social Media.
Social Pilot helps you schedule posts to your social networks with a quick setup. You can even create recurring posts for certain days or times so that you never have to worry about it again. You can check it out here
IQHastags: Skyrocket your Instagram profile! The most frequently used tool for Instagram hashtags and analytics. IQhashtags is the latest, complete tool for creating the most effective hashtags on Instagram. Avoid shadowban on Instagram - find banned hashtags that you use, You can check it out here

I am fortunate enough that, despite the Covid crisis, my income has not changed and has actually increased in this crazy climate of 2020/21.

At the beginning of the crisis exactly 12 months ago, I thought I had to modify strategies and leave aside my extremely successful workshops/photo walks business and commercial clients heavily linked to tourism and travel. They accounted for more than 200,000 Euro. So I sat down and decided to explore other areas and find different incomes

In 12 months I started three business ideas each of them became very profitable in less than 90 days

From creating a side-hustle to finding new clients I would like to share some business tips for photographers, emerging artists and creatives that find themselves in difficulties due to the financial stress.

The first thing you must understand is that you're a business, not just an artist. Realize that getting clients is just part of the game.

Monetize on your talents and experience and be active and get some exposure for the post-lockdown season.

Diversify Your Income

Especially in these difficult times with lockdowns and scarcity of paid work you may have come to the conclusion that you have been relying fully on commercial clients, or agencies or something else and then realize how important it was to have other money streams. Focus more on stock photography, as you can always photograph your own family, yourself, landscapes, and still lifes.

If you’re not sure where to start, spend some time brainstorming potential side-hustles, here are just some ideas

Start your very own photography YouTube channel as a long-term project. Join affiliate programs related to photography. Start a blog, and set up an online shop where I’ll sell photography resources, courses, eBooks, zines, prints.

Become a Specialist

There are many talented photographers out there but they are generalists, but in my experience what consumers want is experts, photographers with a particular insight and mastery of their skills. This year, if you have more free time, use it to build, learn and develop. Pick a niche and get extremely good at it to the point where you can offer the best service.

Build a micro-site dedicated to a niche of the photography world. For example, you could build a site for pet photographers, based on 3 - 5 blogs that you can share on social media.

Network, Network and more Network

It is still possible, without leaving a house, to reach out and network! It helps in to provide a possible customer communication outreach spreadsheet where everything from the name of the person, company name, contact details, outreach date, and any notes can be written down. If you don't hear back, make sure to follow up as it is not uncommon for it to take a few tries before hearing back from a potential customer.

Invite people to join a "Fan Page" and receive a login. In this way, they build their own personal profile page. The Fan Page can be displayed in the back of a session room or studio, where it can be viewed along with the other images that have been uploaded.

Use a referral program. This is an effective tool for indexing a viral spread, as users can share a link via email with friends and family, expanding upon the initial user. However, to make this strategy work you need to offer some incentive for users to refer the link.

Have continuous interaction with your network by starting conversations you care about. In the blog post How I Grew My Wedding Photography Business to $195,000 a Year Using Facebook, Pro Photographer Randy Joyner describes how he did just that.

Use Social Media, from Facebook to Instagram from Linkedin to Twitter!