Small Business Strategies: Building Your Database Through Social Media

database for photographers

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Photography Business Institute
Photography Business Institute

When you’re building out your social networks, you need to actually become friends with the people on your database rather than seeing them as channels to sell to.

I am talking about befriending them, treating them the way they’ve shown they want to be treated, and engaging them the way they’ve shown they want to be engaged.

If you hear about a client winning an award or being honored, send them a personal note congratulating them!

If you are friends with members of your database on Facebook, LinkedIn, or any other network, and you see that they posted something interesting, comment on it and give them love.

I hopped online one day and I saw one of my clients was running a school fund-raiser, and because I was listening, I had the opportunity to reach out and donate a studio gift certificate for the auction.

The goal is to become more of a friend than a service provider. It’s all about building and maintaining genuine relationships.

Social media is a hotspot for boutique businesses. And it’s a great way to nurture your database—but only if you do it right.

Social media is not a place to post your rapid-fire sale (which you won’t do after reading this book anyway) or push your products every hour.

Your database will turn you off if you invade their social space with sales messages.

However, they’ll be turned on by your approach if you treat them like friends.

Listen, share, and connect with all the people in your database if they’ll allow it and as long as you don’t overstep their boundaries. Would the clients of a boutique salon be interested in watching a new product demonstration on how to straighten curly hair? Sure. But do they want to hear “Call me today for a consultation” over and over and over? Not so much. They want information they believe they won’t get anywhere else.

 Action Step:

1.      Find clients you haven’t seen in a while. Go to social media to see what they are up to. Give them some love.

 To get more tips on pricing, marketing, and small business strategies, download a free chapter of my New York Times Best Selling book, Worth Every Penny: Build a Business that Thrills Your Clients and Still Charge What You’re Worth at: https://photographybusinessinstitute.com/our-book/try-a-chapter/

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