Whether you’re a model, photographer on influencer, making money and getting work through social media is going to be a key aspect of your job. In this day and age, it’s difficult not to! Obviously being an influencer, you’re main income is going to come from collaborations or work for brands. As a model, growing an Instagram account can be really beneficial, and it will help getting work with both photographers and brands. As a photographer, social media is a chance to showcase your talent to a huge audience, and collaborate with brands to earn more money!
Where do I find brands to work with?
Social media. Easy as anything. Personally, I use Instagram and the wonderful world of google to find my brands. I get quite a lot of sponsored posts on my news feed because of the way I use Instagram, which is hugely beneficial to me as it means I don’t need to go searching too far to find brands to contact! From there, I can find more brands on the suggested tabs. If brands follow me, I always email them and usually I get a reply, which is great!
Just searching on google is another great way to find brands. Searching, for example, ‘top 20 UK clothing brands’ and then finding them on Instagram is a really easy way to find more brands.
How do I go about contacting brands?
Email them. You can’t wait for brands to just contact you, because unless you’ve got over 100,000, realistically they’re not going to come looking for you. Most companies have their contact information on their Instagram page, and if not it will be on their website, so it’s more than easy to find out an email address. Just send them an email explaining who you are and what you offer and hopefully they’ll get back to you!
But no one’s responding to me…
It’s not going to work like clockwork. I email so many brands to get work, and only a very small percentage will get back to me, and then an even smaller percentage will actually say they’re willing to pay to work with me. Offering free services to start your collaboration is a great way to create a working relationship that might lead to them paying you for your services further down the line. I always say that even if a brand doesn’t have a social media budget to spend, I will always post stories on my Instagram in return for them sending over products. If your stories get loads of views, this can be really beneficial for them, and then you’ll probably get a paid collaboration with them in the near future.
All in all, you’ve got to put in the work to find the brands to work with. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve got 5000 or 50000 followers, you can still find work on social media, you’ve just got to go out and get it! If you’ve got any tips on how to find work on social media, let me know in the comments!