I absolutely LOVE watching Instastories from other senior photographers! Your creativity amazes me! But sometimes there seems to be a little disconnect between the creativity of your work and the creativity you bring to your Instagram stories. And I want to help you guys with that today.

Our Instagram followers want to see more than just pretty pictures. They want to see behind the scenes (and not just from our senior sessions). They want to know who we are. They want to be able to relate to us and know that they can trust us and be comfortable with us at their own sessions too. That’s why our stories are so important! The Instagram feed is for the pretty stuff. But in our stories we can be playful, fun and let them really see our personality and who they are going to be working with.

There are a few mistakes being made out there when it comes to using Instagram stories that I do want to touch on though. Some of these are just missed opportunities that can easily be avoided. So let’s talk about the ones I see the most.

The Top 5 Mistakes Senior Photographers Should Avoid In Their Instastories

5 Mistakes To Avoid In Your Instastories:

Posting & ghosting - Be sure you are circling back around a few times a day to see who is viewing & engaging with your stories. Go give them some love too! Don’t just post a story in the morning and disappear until that evening. You’ll get the best results by posting consistently throughout the day. (Let me be the first to say, I know this isn’t realistic sometimes. I’m a mom & business owner too! Believe me I get it! Haha!)
Not location tagging - This one is pretty simple. Make sure you are taking advantage of the location sticker so that your local audience has a better chance of seeing your story. You can tag your city, your county, a school, a local restaurant or shop too.
Not following up with engagement - When your followers vote in a poll, answer a question, DM you or take a quiz be sure you are acknowledging them! Take 10 minutes a day to go through those and give them a quick “hey, thanks for voting! me too!” message. Head over to their stories and engage with them too!
Ignoring feedback - When your audience tells you what they like and don’t like, LISTEN TO THEM! If they want something different from you, give it to them! Hey, I’m stubborn too and want to post what I want to post, but at the end of the day we are doing this for them and to drive business to our studios. They may not actually “tell” you that they don’t like something, but paying attention to your story analytics will give you a lot of insight into what they do and do not like.
Speaking to the wrong audience - Remember who you are posting for when creating a story! We are creating for teens and sometimes their moms too. So many times I see photographers who have missed this somehow. They are obviously posting for peers and feature accounts instead of for clients and potential clients. Remind yourself of your purpose and mission before ever going to your stories.

BONUS! How about not engaging at all? It really surprises me how many times I’ll put a fun poll out there that I KNOW everyone has an opinion on and there are so few photographers voting on it. Guys, we have to GIVE what we want to GET! If you want to get the engagement you are craving then you have to be willing to give it first. It’s not that tough. Click a button. Dealing it to you straight - if you don’t play the game, you can’t complain when your followers don’t either. Love ya! Mean it :)

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