Gone are the days when you could grow a social media account simply by using a few good hashtags. Now, people consume content at a crazy rapid pace, so keeping your pages fresh and updated is of the utmost importance for London influencers.
At Vanity Studios, we have helped some of the top London influencers create engaging photo content to grow their brand on social media. We’ve taken some of the things we’ve learned throughout the years and set up this guide to teach you what makes for great content in order to help you grow your following!
How can you keep people engaged and represent yourself as an influencer? Have a look:
1. Aim high, always!
Never succumb to low quality content, even if you run out of things to post. If you’re trying to take a career in social media seriously, your image should always portray a certain level of professionalism no matter what.
London influencers have the benefit of being in perhaps the most popular city in the world, so that’s even more reason to shoot for the stars!
Stay ahead of the game and create a folder of content ready to post at any time, and make sure they all fall under a certain standard so that your posts remain consistent across your page.
Videos should be at a minimum of 1080p whenever possible, and photos should be crystal clear unless a blur is part of your desired effect. This will show people that you are serious about your brand and have the means (and eye) to create engaging content.
You don’t need crazy expensive professional equipment to do this either! You can take 4K videos on most phones these days, and photo quality can be super sharp if you know how to play around with the settings and try out new and creative angles. Check out Youtube and TikTok for ideas, there are tonnes of how-to videos for people looking for a new technique!
2. Invest in your image
Invest in yourself and your content by booking a professional photographer whenever you can. Try to keep your feed fresh and get new photos taken every so often in order to add them to your folder of readily available content.
Whether you book a studio for new shots or hire someone to follow you around the colourful streets around Brick Lane, having photos taken will allow you to get not only the images you have taken, but behind-the-scenes photo and video content that you can use in your stories and reels.
This is especially important for those whose brand relies on their image or overall personality. Whether you’re a makeup artist, an actor or simply wish to rank up in the realm of London influencers, you want people to see you for who you are. The way to do this in the highest quality possible is by booking a professional photoshoot.
And let’s not disregard how fun and educational that experience will be! Get a taste of how an established influencer, model or actor can feel, enjoy a bit of pampering and discover your strengths and weaknesses during your shoot.
It can help you see yourself in a different light and play around with new ways to pose, new ways to dress or the like as you experiment with new material.
3. Be Consistent, But Try New Things
The biggest flaw that creators succumb to is that they aren’t consistent and often lose any momentum they had with their audience simply because they go a week without posting new content. The best way to stay on top of things is to create a content schedule.
Decide on which days of the week you want to post, whether you use a scheduling tool like Buffer or Hootsuite, or you plan to post manually. Curate your content in advance and decide on which day of the week you want it to go whenever possible so that you don’t become tired of looking for something to post last minute. This way you’ll know well in advance of running out of material and can prepare a photoshoot to restock.
If you find that you need more engaging content, try something new! Explore a new area, visit landmarks, try a new bar or restaurant and the like. Leave room for events, holidays or special days out so you can post stories and content on the day, otherwise you’ll find it’s quite easy - and fun - to keep posting if you take a day out of your week to do something new and create new content.
4.Take Short Videos Whenever You Can
Between Instagram and TikTok, short-fire videos are becoming the most important pieces of content for the fastest possible growth. With the likes of these popular platforms putting shorter time limitations on video content, people are compressing everything they need to say or show in up to 30 seconds.
Now more than ever, people relate to and prefer video content as it can sometimes be more engaging if you have a message to portray.
Whether it’s humorous, a life hack or you just want to chat with your audience, try keeping videos at 30 seconds for Instagram Reels, and up to one minute for TikTok posts.
Don’t forget, Reels are massive these days! Instagram is pushing visibility for Reels in order to compete with TikTok, so now is the time to take advantage. If you previously were only able to get between 100 to 200 views on your video posts, you might find that a Reel could garner 1,500 views even if you use the same hashtags.
This boost in reach won’t last forever, so make the most of it while you can! Which brings us to our next point:
5. Stay Up to date on Trends and Changes
We don’t need to tell you just how quickly a trend can go viral. To stay relevant, London influencers need to be able to keep up with what’s popular. Of course, you don’t have to do every little song and dance that the social media world comes up with, but if you feel like something can benefit your brand or speaks to you regarding a cause you’re passionate about, include it on your content schedule.
Charity-related challenges especially make for great new content and bring awareness to a good cause. Trends like this will give you ideas for new content whilst showing your audience what you care about most.
Keep up with all the latest news on the social media industry. Something that you might disregard as irrelevant, for example, Apple releasing an iOS update, might have a massive effect on the way London influencers reach their audience, especially if you run ads.
Everything from app updates to algorithm changes will affect your visibility and potential to reach new followers. What worked one day might not work the next, but as long as you are following industry news and seeing what goes on day to day, you’ll be able to keep up.
Be consistent, show the world who you are and make sure you don’t give up, Follow these steps and you’ll find yourself joining the world of London influencers in no time!