How to make people share and comment your Facebook photos

There are countless reasons a person might want people to share their photos on facebook. As a photographer, I want to have people share my photos to draw in new paying clients and to drive my brand home in my market area. An activist may be hoping to raise awareness of the cause by having a photo of theirs go viral. What ever the reason, it’s not always as easy to get photos noticed because the content is a never-ending stream on facebook.

From my own personal experiences I’ve put together a list of tips & tricks. These are only a few ways to get more shares and likes on images you post to facebook as well as with other social media websites.

I have 4 tactics that will hopefully inspire you to be creative with how you share your images on facebook. But before I get into that I think it’s also important to address where to post your images for maximum exposure and how often.

Where to post them really depends on what you are trying to accomplish with your photos. If you are a photographer trying to hit a local, national or even global audience I highly recommend facebook groups. Why you ask? Because if you become a member of facebook groups that you have targeted towards specific goals for your images your posts can potentially reach thousands of people in an instant. And it’s FREE!

For the purpose of showing your work as say ‘a local photographer’ seeking clients, join all the buy, sell & trade facebook groups within your desired working region. You have to be careful when posting images in these groups because each group has their own rules. If you remain respectful and only post once or twice a week, you should be good.

Some groups get annoyed if you post several posts. A good rule of thumb is to post one photo with your message about your photography business. Leave that post alone for a week, unless people comment on it. After a week, delete the post from any groups you have added it to, and then make a fresh post grab people's attention again.

I use this example because this is how I’ve generated 90% of my clients for the past 4 years. The key is not to over-post, respect other people and of course keep engaged with anyone that responds to your work in a positive way.

Now that we have a starting place for where to post our photos, let’s go over 4 tips to help your posts get more shares on facebook.

TIP 1: A picture is worth 1000 words

But sometimes adding actual text to your photos is necessary to generate a sharing ‘snowball effect’. If you are looking for a particular response from your image, sometimes you have to give the viewer a little nudge. For example, when I want to promote wedding photography to potential couples I use colorful headlines.

Yes, the image is going to be what grabs my viewers attention at first. However, if I want my wedding photography to reach more couples who are planning their weddings I could include a headline with my image. Something as simple as ‘Does anybody know of any couples getting married?’.

By not directly asking people to promote your work, often people will respond to this kind of photo post by simply tagging a friend who is getting married. People hear a question like the one above and the basic urge to connect someone they know to you just naturally kicks in.

And you can use this sort of strategy for just about any type of photo you want to get more shares from. Just tweak the headline to something that suits your purpose, and of course, try multiple posts over time with different headlines to see what works and what doesn’t.

TIP 2: Memes

They are one of the fastest ways to get a photo to spread like a wildfire. It isn’t the best choice for every situation because you usually have to have a sense of humor about the image you are trying to promote. A meme is defined as: ‘a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc. that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users.’

Memes are a very effective way to get the right type of images to take on a life of their own online. We’ve all seen them, we’ve all laughed at them, and most of us are guilty of sharing them before we have even finished laughing out loud. It’s an impulse. ‘I’m laughing and I want others to see how funny this image is’… is sort of the subconscious process that makes Memes so successful.

TIP 3: Don’t be afraid to ask people to share

Sometimes the best trick is no trick at all. Simply be yourself. If you have created an image you are proud of and want lots of people to see it, chances are people will be more than happy to help you out. I mean, they are your closest 4320 ’friends’ on facebook right?

So if you get even 10% of those people to share your image by asking, that 432 people spreading your image. And of those shares, friends of your friends will most likely share the image if it’s interesting. So something as simple as asking for help can often be that genuine touch that resonates with people. It’s not always about smoke and mirrors to get attention.

TIP 4: Challenge people to get the most shares 

If you are really wanting to get your images in the hands of a lot of people, make it worth their trouble. You can make it fun or funny. For example, tell people you are running a contest with your photo. Whoever can share the image the most times with a #hashtag for your contest name in the post wins a prize.

They don’t have to win a physical prize, it can be whatever you think people would be interested in. Maybe your wrote an ebook on ‘How to get people to share your photos on facebook’ that you can give away to the winner lol. The point is, people like to feel engaged online. It’s why social media works so well. So engage them! You’re audience is all but begging you to!