Recently I was invited to speak at United: a fabulous conference in Phoenix, AZ for professional photographers by ShowIt.

This conference is very special to me because my roots are in photography. I was a photographer first, before I was an Instagram strategist and owner of Social Curator. And I will always be a photographer first, regardless of what anyone says because the camera comes from my heart, my hands, and my soul.

In my lecture, I discussed over 10 different ways photographers can jumpstart their business pre-, during, and post-wedding. Below are 5 of my favorites that you can start implementing this upcoming wedding season!

1. Send a pre-wedding email to vendors. Once I showed up to a wedding and the florist had brought their own photographer. Yep. In my frustration though, I realized it was not their job to know how I work, it was mine. We want to make sure that we inform everybody what they can expect on the wedding day.
2. List all of the Instagram information for all of the vendors. Why? Boo, because if it ain’t you, it’s not going to get done! Plus, this puts you in the benevolent position of doing all of the hard work and the other vendors will be so grateful.
3. Send a list of hashtags to them. If you have a hard time, the other vendors do too—wouldn’t it be great if every time they work with you their social media work is done? For those of you wondering where to start, follow my Hashtag formula: 5 location specific, 5 state specific, 5 venue specific, 5 detail specific, 5 vendor specific, and 5 big/small hashtags.
4. Ask the videographer for behind-the-scenes footage. We all know that wedding videographers take a lot of footage that ends up in the trash. What would it look like if you emailed them asking how much it would cost for 2-3, 15-second shots of you working with your clients? Then take these and turn them into a 3-part Instagram story feature of you behind the scenes that you can then combine and put on to IGTV.
5. Take videos of other vendors working. Friend, take out your iPhone… And when the florist delivers their arrangements and the bride is so excited, take a short video clip and text it to the florist. Your brain is hard-wired to catch these moments, but theirs are not—so if you create the content for them, they will post it on their social media and thank you for it!

These 5 points may seem small, but they are total game-changers. They cover you to ensure there aren’t any faux pas on the big day, they help you create content for your social media, and they position you as someone the other vendors can trust.

Coming back and speaking to other photographers is always such a special event for me. I hope you take these 5 points and use them to jumpstart your photography business in 2019!

Remember, I’m rooting for you always.