Hey, everyone. My name is Jamie Delaine Watson. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Today we’re going to be talking about Instagram
accounts for photographers. Should we have a business account and a personal
account, or should we combine them? Throughout my photography business, I have
always been in favor of blending your business life with your personal life, because I think
that’s what makes you standout when you’re marketing. For example, on my Facebook or on my main
Instagram, Jamie Delaine, you’ll see lots of personal posts mixed with posts about my
business. I think it’s your personality that will set
you apart. If it’s very business as usual, you’re going
to look like every other photographer. You need to be able to show your clients what
makes you different and draw them to your personality and that certain vibe you bring
to your business. That being said, I’ve recently been experimenting
with a business-only Instagram account. What I’m mean by this, and how I’ve separated
it, is I have my Instagram account, @jamiedelaine. You can go check it out. That one’s a larger account, because I’ve
had it for years. On there, I post my photography work as well
as my daily life, some of my writing, and it’s really like a potpourri of my life. I think it’s a really good way to describe
it. On that Jamie Delaine Instagram, you’ll see
a whole mix of photos. Honestly, I like to follow people who provide
a whole mix of images as well. If they’re a photographer, or if they’re a
painter, or if they’re a builder, and their Instagram that’s branded in their name is
just what they do for work, I don’t feel like I can really get to know them, so I’ve always
done kind of a 50/50 mix on that main Instagram account. Now, as I said, I’ve experimented with a @jamiedelainephoto
Instagram account. What this is, is this is purely a portfolio
account. It says that in the description in my profile. It says Jamie Delaine, and I can actually
tag my main Instagram account @jamiedelaine’s portfolio account, all about joy-filled images. Contact me for wedding and portrait pricing,
something like that. Right away, if a client stumbles just upon
that, and all they see is my photo work, and they’re like, “Oh, what does this girl look
like? What’s her personality?” They’re not thinking they’re not moving onto
another account. They’re going, “Oh, this is Jamie Delaine’s
portfolio. Maybe I’ll hop on over to her Instagram.” That’s where they’ll see more pictures of
my life, and maybe get to know me a bit more that way. Why I have these two accounts? Originally, it just started as an experiment. Honestly, I thought, “Well, why not?” Another Instagram account is free. Instagram is also, about a year ago, gave
you the ability to add multiple accounts to your Instagram app, so you don’t have to log
in and out of them each time. I just thought, “Hey, let’s go for it. It’s free. Let’s see what happens.” It’s been a really amazing thing for my business. Honestly, for my portfolio account, I’m not
monitoring, like analytics, and insights, and trying to grow my followers and all this. It’s really just a curated portfolio account
on Instagram that’s pushing content out regularly. That’s another little secret. My Jamie Delaine account is pretty much … It’s
not updated in real time, but I don’t schedule posts. I might have, like I plan posts using the
app Planoly, which I’ll include links to all of this stuff below. I’ll plan and I’ll think ahead about what
I’m going to post, but my Jamie Delaine photo account is actually scheduled using an app
called Grum, G-R-U-M.co. After I shoot a session, I will come home. I’ll cull. I’ll edit. I’ll blog. I’ll do all that stuff. Then, for portrait sessions, I choose between
three to six images. I import them into to Lightroom, so I can
plan my feed. I do the cropping for Instagram. I plan how they’re going to look next to one
another. I export those in a smaller size. Then, I upload those to Grum.co. I upload those with usually a repeat of what
I said on the blog, just like a little caption for each image. Then, I include a whole bunch of hashtags,
which you can do in the first comment on Grum. I schedule those out one or two per day for
the next three days. For weddings, I tend to do about nine images. I like to keep in three six or nine, again,
so when you look at the feed it looks very consistent. That is purely portfolio work. The benefit of having a portfolio-only account
is it gives you the freedom to put a ton of your work out there on Instagram to fill these
specific hashtags based on your location or your niche with your work without annoying
people who almost haven’t signed up for that. That’s not really a great way to say it, but
if I was to suddenly start posting like nine wedding images from my last wedding over the
next week on my Jamie Delaine Instagram, I feel like if I was a follower, that’s not
really what I want. I want to know who that person is. But, I have no problem hopping over to Instagram
to visit that person. Or, there’s a few photographers, I love their
work enough that I do follow their portfolio-only accounts. I just like having that separation so I can
spam people with my photos. I mean, two a day isn’t really considering
spamming people, but for me it feels like that. I can do that with no shame. They opted in to follow. I’ve actually seen a crazy increase in inquiries
for weddings and portraits. They say they found me through Instagram,
which honestly was not happening just with my Jamie Delaine Instagram account. I think it’s just the consistency and not
putting enough of my work on there. But once again, that’s not really what I want
my main Instagram to look like. The portfolio account has been really, really
great for that. You can also have the option on Instagram
of creating a business account, so you switch how it’s classified. Pinterest also has this. Obviously, Facebook does with the difference
between profiles and pages. This came in about a year ago as well. You can make your portfolio account an actual
business and make it really easy for someone to hit a button, and message, and inquire
with you right there. I hope this has been helpful for you. I hope maybe you’ll reconsider. If you have two accounts, are they working
for you? Are you using them in these ways? If you just have one, would you like to make
the jump and add the second portfolio account? It’s been a really positive thing for me. If you have any questions about how I function
within these two accounts, let me know. Also, I’m going to include a link on the screen
to a place you can download, just a little quick video of how my process for both of
these things. The process for Grum, for the portfolio account,
I’ll have some screencap videos showing you exactly those steps, and then also showing
you the way around Planoly, which I use for my main Jamie Delaine Instagram. If you want to find me on Instagram, you can
do that @jamiedelaine or @jamiedelainephoto for my portfolio account. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you subscribe. As always, be sure to comment below, and I
would love to hear from you. Thanks.