Free Marketing Tools You Should Use As A Photographer
These days, there are SO MANY THINGS you can spend a little or a lot of money on to help you market yourself. From Facebook ads, to databases, to agents (yes they technically cost you money), to social media planning apps. All of these things can really add up, and I know that many of you don't really want to be spending your precious pennies on things like that. So today I'm going to share with you some of my favourite free marketing tools!
LinkedIn: I've shared this before, but LinkedIn is absolutely incredible. It's so underused, and so undervalued by so many (although I think this is starting to change). I was so late to the party when it came to appreciating LinkeIn, but that's changed now. LinkedIn is the "professional social network" which means that almost every one of your dream clients is on there, and they're on there in a professional capacity. That makes it quite powerful, because it means they're on there to work! You can share your work and get it seen by people who might actually hire you.
Not only that, it's basically a free version of all the massive databases that you can be tempted to spend a lot of money on. I used to pay for a database, and it brought me nothing. However, LinkedIn has allowed me to connect with people I've always dreamt of working with, and actually get somewhere.
I teach you how to effectively use LinkedIn within my Pitching With Confidence online course.
LinkedIn does have a premium version, but I don't encourage you to use that. It's very expensive, and in my experience you can get everything you need out of it, by just using the free version.
If you don't already, sign up to LinkedIn and start making the most of it!
TikTok: This one is so new, but holy wow the potential to market yourself on this platform is huge. I'm still very much learning how it works, and how best to use it, but because TikTok is in such a growth stage, accounts are growing fast (I've had it for a month and I've already got over 1000 followers - growth like that is unheard of on Instagram these days). I'm using TikTok to share behind the scenes of my work, as well as tips and tricks. I haven't booked any work through it yet, but hey, if my account grows enough, who knows what could happen?! It's free, so I'm using it
The Dots: I've mentioned The Dots to you all a few times, but I'm using this website more and more, and a fashion photographer I think its possibly one of the best free platforms to be on. The website seems to be growing more and more, and there's a really lovely, engaged community on there. I share pretty much all my new work to it, and it always gets featured on the home page, so that means more eyeballs on my work! Its a fab place to network, discover new people and keep an eye out for people who might want to collaborate with you. Definitely sign up to it and start to use it if you aren't already.
Email: This sounds so obvious, but your email is free to use. All you need a gmail account, and you can send emails to anyone you want to contact. I really can't stress enough how useful pitching is, and I teach you exactly how to use email effectively in my Pitching With Confidence course. Click here to take a look!
IFTTT:This little website stands for "If This Then That" which sounds more confusing than it actually is. You can do lots of things on this site (not just market yourself) but I really like to use it as a way to get my posts out to more platforms, without me really needing to do anything! I'm terrible with Twitter, but I know its a place where potential clients could be hanging out, so I use IFTTT to make sure my Instagram posts get posted to Twitter. You set it up once, and then its automatic! Take a look at it, cause there's SO much you can do on it
Youtube:Youtube is one of the absolute best ways to boost you SEO. Its owned by Google, and Google really like it when you use their own stuff (they tend to favour you better in search rankings!). So make sure to post any behind the scenes videos, or fashion films that you make to a youtube page which points to your website.
