You don’t need an army of followers. You don’t even need to spend hours every day tweeting. Follow these 5 tips and you’ll soon be on your way!

1. Follow and tweet us

The very first thing you should do is follow @smashandpeas and tweet us with a quick photography tip, a link to your portfolio or anything you think would be of interest to other photographers. We’ll then retweet it and before long you’ll have new followers who all share the same interests.

2. Don’t be boring

Your followers want to see your latest shots, read your tips and ideas, find out what exciting photography related things you’re doing. They don’t want to know what you just had for dinner or how long it took you to get home.

3. Join in the conversation

It’s not all about shameless self promotion. Tweet your followers. Ask questions, tell them you like their latest photo, retweet any tweets you find interesting and reply to everyone who tweets you.

4. Be everywhere

When a new movie is released, the lead actor seems to be everywhere. Posters, billboards, buses, tv, just everywhere. They make sure that anybody who might be interested knows about it. You can play that same role on Twitter. Tweet the big players in your niche. They wont all reply but some will and you’ll pick up new followers along the way.

5. Get retweeted

If you only have 1 follower, you don’t have much of an audience to tweet to but if that 1 follower has 100 followers and retweets you, it’s like you have 100 followers of your own. I’m repeating myself here but to make yourself more tweetable, just be interesting and useful.

6. Treat your followers like people

It’s easy to act differently online but behind all those twitter names are real people. Be yourself and talk to followers as though you’re talking to them face to face. Just remember, there are potentially millions of people listening into your conversations.

That’s all for now folks. Remember to follow and tweet @smashandpeas

I called them “people with cameras” there because for every professional photographer, there are probably a hundred amateurs all selling their “photography” services. Poor reputations are hard to recover from!

Tip #1: Be amazing

If you’ve only just started out in photography and only know the basics, do yourself and potential clients a favour and learn your trade first. Know your gear inside out! Don’t just be good. Be amazing!

Tip #2: Be a people person

Unless you plan to make your living from landscape photography or “arty” photography then you’re going to need good people skills. Sometimes photographers can be quite shy and would rather be behind than in front of a camera but don’t let shyness stop you. People warm to that and if you make friends with your clients, there’s far more chance they’ll tell their friends and you’ll have work coming in without really having to sell yourself at all.

Tip #3: Be prepared

Do you know what your niche is going to be? Are you going to be a sole trader or a registered company? Any idea where to start selling your services? Being an incredible photographer with great people skills is a start but if you don’t know business, making a living out of photography is going to be a much tougher challenge!