One of the fastest growing industries in Ghana is digital media advertising. There are opportunities in it for almost everyone who wants to be a part of it. One of the players in the industry benefiting largely are photographers.

Social Media Effect

The importance of visual content emphasized by the changes that occur across almost every social network including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and pinterest, has spurred the once-upon-a-time small industry of photographers into a big industry now. Here’s some startling stats to put that in perspective

1) Researchers found that colored visuals increase people’s willingness to read a piece of content by 80%. (source)

2) When people hear information, they’re likely to remember only 10% of that information three days later. However, if a relevant image is paired with that same information, people retained 65% of the information three days later. (source)

3) 46% of marketers say photography is critical to their current marketing and storytelling strategies. (source)

To use pictures effectively in your marketing campagin, you need a good photographer and a graphic designer. You need image experts. Photographers are getting business from both individuals for their personal programs like weddings and birthday parties, and business organisations for digital media campaigns.

[bctt tweet=”Photographers have at least two income streams available to them: Stock photography and shooting on assignment” username=”topbizjournal”]

Stock Photography

Photographers can take their time and take random yet useful images of people, places, objects, events, animals, plants, nature and many more for sale. This model does not require anyone to commission you to do the job. You do it on your own and upload them online for sale. You’ll be surprised the number of times you can sell a single image and how much that can make you. If you sell 5,000 copies of an image for 50 cents, you earn $2,500. This is something you can earn on monthly basis if you market your works well. Images may be priced below 50 cents though, but the advice here is to sell more images. There are many businesses and media companies that buy images before they use them online. They don’t use the free images that many smaller businesses and advertisers use.

Despite such a big market for stock photography, I rarely see photographers in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya actively engaged in this model of photography. Many of them are engaged in shooting on assignment.

Shooting on Assignment

Upon engagement, photographers show up at your events to capture images for the memories of clients at a fee. Some charge as high as GHc2,500 for weddings and engagements. This is the major source of income for many photographers in Ghana. Your work has to speak for itself but you also have to market yourself. Referral is key for success in this model of photograhpy business.

Obviously, it’s a photographers’ season in Ghana and other African countries. Those who take their business seriously and add other skills such as picture editing and image marketing would be the ones to take a bigger bite at this large cake of demand for digital images.

Photography Courtesy : Apag Studios