Question: I use great photos on my business social media, but I’m not selling anything. What am I doing wrong??

Answer: Great photography is only one part of social media promotion for a business. You’ve also got to have solid branding, on-point messaging, clear captions, and be putting your content in the right places to begin with!

Social media for business owners feels like another job entirely

You know what’s so totally out there that it feels like it shouldn’t be real? You started a business to do something you love – maybe teaching yoga, or helping people find a home that they love, or connecting people to their personal style. Something that lights you up, and that you’re amazing at. And you love doing that thing, which is, again, why you started a business focused on it. But when you started that business, I’d guess that it very quickly snowballed.

You became, almost overnight, an accountant, and a social media manager, and a photographer, and in a lot of cases early on, a web designer and content creator and appointment manager and customer support analyst – and the list just goes on and on. Did you sign up for those things? No. Are they optional? Also no.

When social media isn’t working, it’s not always your photos

And if you’re not in a place where you can outsource yet, which is totally understandable and even expected, early on, then it also becomes your job to evaluate when those things are working or not. Sometimes, that’s easy to pinpoint, like when your accounting software isn’t correctly connected to your banking (an “oops”, but you can fix it, I believe in you). Other times, you’re thrown into a new world, like the world of social media.

If your social media isn’t “working” – as in, it’s falling flat and you feel like you’re yelling about what you do into the void, the first thing most people think about, is changing their visuals. If promotion isn’t working on all these visual social media platforms, it MUST be something about your pictures, right?

Except… that’s not always what’s up. Obviously, it would make sense for me, a photographer, to be like “new photos are the solution to all of your social media woes! Just hire me, and it’ll all be fixed!” But if I told you that, I’d be lying. There are a whole suite of things you should specifically look at BEFORE you go straight to “new pictures”, and we’re going to walk through them today. Because if I’m working with you for new photos for your business social media, I want it to be because that’s what you ACTUALLY need. Not because you think it’s going to be a magic, quick fix.

So let’s get into it!

1 – Make sure your branding is attracting the right people

The very first thing you need to check in on if your social media isn’t working, is much bigger than just your photos. It’s your overall branding. And this one is VERY not optional. It doesn’t matter how amazing your product photos, or graphics are, if your branding isn’t talking to your ideal audience? You’re straight up not going to get engagement, and if you’re not getting engagement… that’s not going to bring you new customers. So check in on your brand targeting, and make sure it’s hitting the mark.

If you don’t know where to start – the best place is actually the customers you already have! If your business is service based, start a conversation. If it’s product based, go do some research on your niche. Make sure that your branding – including your messaging, and voice, not just your logo and color palette – is doing work for you. If it’s not… start THERE. Not with new photos. New photos come AFTER you’ve made sure the foundation – AKA your branding – is solid. Without the foundation? Photos are just… a pile of pretty sprinkles, with no cake to go on.

2 – Make sure your online presence is optimized

Once you’ve confirmed that your branding is top-notch and doesn’t need changes – or you’ve MADE the changes that need to happen, whether yourself, or by working with a pro – it’s time to check on the rest of your online presence. See, your social media can’t just exist on its own. I mean without even getting into the dangers of that from the perspective of “you don’t own that platform” – it’s bigger than that.

Now that search patterns are changing, and people are using more AI than ever in their process of finding a business that solves their problem, you can’t just have an Instagram account and expect that to prop up your whole business. You need a well-rounded online presence, that includes a baseline website (even if it’s one page!!), and reference points across the web like reviewing sites, industry niche listings, and more, so that users (and AI platforms) can learn to trust you.

Getting a follower on Instagram is great – but if they don’t have anywhere else to go? To see you doing what you do? To build that trust they need to make their first purchase? That Instagram presence is just a branch that fell off a tree, and your customers can’t get from there to… anything. So if your social media presence is falling flat, make sure it’s not happening because there’s nowhere for people to go, or because you don’t have enough of a presence to build customer trust.

3 – Make sure you’re posting on the right platforms

Finally, before you jump to a package of new photos for your business to solve your social media woes, you need to make sure that you’re posting on the right platforms to begin with. Look, as you know, every social media platform has varied audiences. But if you’re trying to reach men in their 70s on Pinterest? You’re probably going to be yelling into the void a little bit.

Your platforms need to be chosen based on criteria that make sense for the people you’re trying to bring into your business, and if they’re not – if they’re chosen because someone said “hey, you should be on TikTok,” then it’s time to sit down, and figure out where your potential clients are spending their time online.

I won’t pretend it’s easy. I won’t pretend it’s fun. But it has to be done, because when these platforms are just chosen on autopilot, they’re not going to do the kind of work for you that you started posting on them for in the first place. And that’s just… honestly a waste of your valuable time. You could be playing with your kids, or reading a book with a cup of tea – and with the right strategy, you can have time for BOTH promoting your business, AND having time for you. It’s not an either/or. But you’ve got to choose the right platforms, that are going to bring in the right people! I go a lot more in depth into how to choose platforms to post on, but for today, we’re going to keep that one short and sweet.

But if you still need a little help… we should talk!

Like I said, photos are amazing. And they can absolutely change the way your business performs both in online marketing, and in physical marketing. But there are some foundational, baseline items you need to tick off your list before you can get there. So if you’re sure your branding is banging, your online presence is top-notch, and you’re posting in the right places, maybe it IS time to talk about photos. But if those aren’t true yet, and you feel like you need help? Reach out anyway. I would love to help advise you to modify your brand, and discuss the platforms that would be most helpful for your audience – because I believe every business owner deserves to have the help they need for a thriving business, AND time for themselves. Not one or the other – BOTH!

Bonus: Take a look at just a few results that my AMAZING team of collaborators and me have gotten for our social media management clients!