Some artists are completely cool creating just for themselves. They use art as an outlet for their emotions. It’s more like a passion and a hobby for them rather than a paying job.
Professional models and photographers, on the other hand, can’t afford to keep their art for themselves. Since they make money from it, they need to continually improve and change to get as close as they can to perfection.
To do so, it’s vital to receive and pay attention to feedback. But for many, the first problem is getting it in the first place. How to nudge your audience to write reviews?
There are a couple of simple tricks to get people to interact with you. So, without delaying it further, let’s look at how you can initiate a dialogue with your online judges.
Extra Materials
The first stage begins even before you have posted your work for everyone to see. You have to make sure every aspect of your work is as good as it can be. And it doesn’t only concern your photos.
Descriptions, captions, little stories, tags… Whatever it is that goes with your photos, all should be polished, double, and triple checked. Poor grammar just doesn’t invite the reader to leave a review.
Brief descriptions are easy enough to manage. Yet, if you are going for something bulkier, you might find out that it adds a lot of work that you might not be too fond of.
In that case, outsourcing that aspect of your work would be the best course of action. The most accessible way to straighten up the materials you deliver and polish grammar would be turning to professional write my essay services like this one. They are pretty used to dealing with this kind of work and will be happy to see your request in their mail.
In addition, there are plenty of programs that will help you fix your style and grammar quickly and efficiently.
Maximum Exposure
This one’s kind of a no-brainer, but beginners often forget about the simple fact – the more exposure your work gets, the more people are going to see it. Thus, the more feedback and reviews you are likely to receive.
Use all the tools at your disposal, social media, photo websites, maybe even make your own website to publish the photos.
Put your finished work everywhere you can, preferably somewhere where you can easily keep your hand on the pulse of the flow of comments. For the sake of science, you can check the number of reviews you receive on one website against the other.
Comparing the results may give an insight into who your audience is and what they want. Use this intel to become even better professional.
Engage with Active Audience
Here comes probably the most important thing on the list. Create an incentive for your audience to be active. Reward comments and reviews, respond to them, talk to people who appreciate your art, show that you are there and that you are grateful for each review.
Show that their contribution means something. You don’t have to respond to every single comment but try your best. The effort is definitely worth it.
Do mind what you step into, though. Prolonged discussions and arguments about why this particular photo is worse than it could be don’t look good. Those may take a lot of energy you can spend on something useful.
Don’t take criticism personally. Accept it and make a note if you think this particular remark is valid. Imagine that every author of every critical review just really wants to see you become better and succeed.
And when you start feeling confident managing your community relationships, you can take it one step further. Hold interactive events, let them have a slightly more direct impact on what’s happening. A vote on the theme of the next photo set, a competition of the best community photographer, get creative!
All of this will make your audience feel welcome and encourage them to come back.
Final Words
As you can see, getting your audience to engage with you is no big deal at all. Marketing and promoting can be scary to get into for some, even when it comes to promoting their own work. But once you begin, you’ll see it’s not much different than just talking to your friends.
So, what you need to do is:
- Perfect your content;
- Showcase your work on niche-relevant platforms;
- Appeal to search engine algorithms to maximize exposure;
- Do your best to engage with your audience;
- If you feel overwhelmed – outsource.
There’s one thing you might need to be mindful of. While you can use these and many other techniques to grow, never forget where you started. It’s vital to preserve your identity in work and not be overshadowed by material gain.
Keep true to yourself, and nothing will be impossible.
Elizabeth Price is a freelance writer interested in education, marketing, and business-related topics. A former Psychology student at Montclair State University, she is still an active learner eager to research almost any topic. You can reach out to her on Twitter.
