How to promote yourself as a photographer on Instagram in 2021?

The step before is to identify a few points for yourself.

• What is my genre? Subject matter, holiday, family, fashion portraits, or something else? To effectively reach your audience, it's best to choose one or two genres. Keep in mind that choosing a narrow niche can play to your advantage: you'll stand out as an in-depth expert in your field.

• What's my style? Features of image processing, color scheme or subjects - something should visually unify the photos for profile visitors.

• What niche do I want to occupy? This concept has to do with both the genre of work and its positioning at the same time. Determine who you want to work with and in what medium you want to promote yourself as a photographer: subject matter photography for a private business, reporting from fashion shows or maybe dog shows, a photographer for family and its special moments, etc.
• What is my target audience? Be a marketer for yourself: make a portrait of the person you see as your customer. What is his age, gender, social status, what are his hobbies? And write your proposal for that particular person. Then you will achieve the greatest response and effect of promotion in Instagram.

1. Great artists show only the best work

The difference between a good artist and a great one is that a great one only shows his best work. You can't compete with Vogue photographers yet, but you should already be paying attention to what you share. It's possible that even one photo can alienate people from your portfolio, so if the shot doesn't have a wow effect - don't post it. If you want to create a wow effect, use animation for your photos and add music to make a video, use appropriate copyright free music that matches the mood of the photo so you won't have any copyright issues. Subscription costs $19 but it closes the copyright issues for any piece of content.

2. Find your niche

You need to find a photography niche that will not only satisfy your creative needs but will also help your business flourish. It also defines your brand: what sets you apart from everyone else? Of course, this rule applies not only to Instagram but also to photography in general.

You can, for example, take pictures of nature

3. Use a real camera

Yes, your brand-new smartphone can take quick and beautiful shots, but we think Instagram has outlived the "take a quick photo and post it" era, and it's being taken much more seriously now. And using a DSLR (or mirrorless, but with a good sensor) camera gives you a definite advantage.

4. Post-production should be serious

Yes, Instagram has a lot of ready-made filters, and you can easily use them for your personal Instagram page. But if you want to become a professional photographer, you should execute all the post-processing by yourself. That's why a real photographer doesn't use anything ready-made but creates it himself.

5. Share a good story along with the snapshot

On Instagram, it's not enough to be a good photographer, you also need to be a good storyteller. Be sure to ask a question at the end of your posts, this is what separates the basic description of the photo from live interaction with followers.

6. Use hashtags effectively

If you're promoting on generic hashtags such as #vsco or #instagood, the likelihood of hitting your target audience is very low. It is vital to do a hashtag analysis for your niche.

7. Build community

Find photographers you are inspired by and try to connect with them. It's a difficult and arduous process, but then you can collaborate with each other and promote your content.

8. Don't chase subscribers

You'd rather have 100 active subscribers, and be sure to get likes and feedback from them, than 2,000 who don’t care about your content. Raise the quality of your content before you start gaining a large audience.