Okay, sure, Annie Leibovitz never needed Instagram to become one of the world’s most celebrated photographers. She was also a decade into her fifty-years-and-counting career when she started to get the shots that put her on the map.

If you’re hesitant to immerse yourself in Instagram to help build your business, allow me to share with you a few VERY compelling reasons to reconsider:

1. It’s free marketing – Did I mention FREE? You can build engagement on Instagram without an ad spend, simply by posting compelling content, consistently.

2. 500 million daily users – More people than make up the entire population of the U.S.A. are on Instagram each day, which means there’s no way you aren’t cutting yourself off from potential customers by avoiding it 

3. It’s a visual platform – As a photographer, you should be there! 

In order to help you get comfortable with the ‘gram, I thought I’d share some of the most frequently asked questions I get from my students and followers who are just starting out. 

When is the best time of day to post?

A more important thing to focus on, especially when you’re starting out, is posting consistently. Don’t create excellent content in your first week out of the gate and then leave your new audience hanging! Once you’ve got that part down, the answer to the timing question really depends on your unique audience. You can check your analytics directly through the app, so try a mix of different times and dates and see for yourself when your audience is online and most engaged. 

Do I need to use stories and reels?

Ideally, yes! But not because you can’t become influential without them. The engagement numbers and organic reach on stories and reels (especially reels) is off the charts right now! If you’re most comfortable with posts, keep grooving with those until you’re ready to expand your horizons (and you do need to expand them eventually). Just be sure to keep up engagement and respond thoughtfully to every comment.

Do I need a hashtag strategy?

For posts and stories, you should be using hashtags. My hashtag strategy is super simple: hit up the popular location hashtags, highlight your niche, and max out on the number of hashtags allowed. If you’re keen to go deeper on this topic, check out this blog post.

What type of content performs best? 

There are two types of content that hit it out of the park every time. The kind that imparts value, teaching the audience something that will benefit them, and the kind that tells a story and evokes a feeling. When you start creating content in the sweet spot where these two overlap, you’ll be unstoppable.

If you’ve got a burning Instagram question you don’t see the answer to, chances are someone else has that question, too! Shoot me a DM on Instagram and I’ll address it and share my response.