I booked photos on Xiaohongshu and earned 15,000 yuan a month

With the development of the Internet, people are gradually looking for "side jobs" on the Internet, and there are many ways to "make money". The most impressive one should be the photo shoot, so how much room is there for the development of accounts based on this kind of skills? This article may have the answer you want.

Last December, Douban user @豆友友 posted a thread in the Douban group “The Day My Side Job Failed”, in which he said he wanted to continue his side job of taking photos, but his current skills were not professional enough and he wanted to seek advice from other users.

A year later, she opened a new post to record the creative process of "shooting together" with models on Xiaohongshu in the past year. Surprisingly, in addition to the improvement in photography technology, @豆友友 also officially started paid photography in August this year and embarked on the road of monetization. In the post, she detailed the whole process of turning photography into a side job, providing real experience for other creators who want to join the game.

"Side job" is undoubtedly the most popular keyword this year. On Douban, the "One Day When Side Job Failed" group has more than 220,000 part-timers, and users "make money" in a variety of ways: tarot divination, fan circle art, cat feeding at home... Most of these "part-time jobs" based on various life scenarios are born out of the increasingly diverse needs of young people.

It is not only the short video platforms that undertake the transactions, but also Xianyu and Xiaohongshu. The former's "offline cooking" and "home housekeeping" are currently very popular, while on Xiaohongshu, which is known as the "barometer" of trendy lifestyle, the popularity of photo shoots remains high, and more and more accounts with such skills as their main content are beginning to emerge.

While attracting a specific audience, can creative talents quietly monetize in this niche track?

1. I made an appointment for a photo shoot on Xiaohongshu

"Photography appointment" means that users and photographers reach a deal online and customize the photo shoot offline. Overall, this business stems from the demand of young people of Generation Z for personalized photo shoots, which is essentially a part of exquisite life.

When traditional photo studios and assembly-line photography studios are unable to satisfy young people who pursue individual expression, the photographers with different styles that have emerged on Xiaohongshu just happen to meet this kind of demand, and have gradually evolved into an online "side job" with a stable audience.

From the perspective of user portrait, according to the data from Xiaohongshu's data center, as of November 2021, Xiaohongshu's monthly active users have reached 200 million, a year-on-year increase of 56.0%. The average daily launch times per person increased by 0.8 times year-on-year, and user stickiness has been significantly enhanced compared to before.

In addition, most of the platform users are female, 72% are born after 1990, and 50% are in first- and second-tier cities. Female users account for the majority, which has also made this small but beautiful business quickly become popular. In the search keywords of Xiaohongshu, the topic #写真 has received 260 million views; in the same city appointment photo, the topic #北京約拍 alone has received 94.48 million views, demonstrating its popularity.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

Whether a client's photos are outstanding depends largely on the photographer's personal level and the model's cooperation, which has raised the entry threshold to this track. Kas noticed that there is often a "mutual encouragement" stage between photographers and models who have just stepped into the threshold of taking photos, which is equivalent to a mutually beneficial cooperation, expanding the opportunity for each other to be seen. Most of the bloggers active on the platform have formed their own unique style.

@张禧芮, who has accumulated 3,300 followers on Xiaohongshu, is a portrait photographer who quit her job in the design industry and entered the full-time photography circle. She had three years of shooting experience before that. Her first note was published in May last year and received 20 likes. In the note, she said that her early customer base was neither vertical nor sufficient, and her personal style was a niche aesthetic. In addition, without good marketing, the content of her account was basically ignored.

It is difficult to cold start this type of account. Even if they produce popular photos with more than 10,000 likes in the future, it is difficult for the popularity to be fed back to the account itself . On the one hand, due to the special nature of products such as "shooting appointments", the repurchase rate is not high. On the other hand, many photographers' transactions rely on social fission. As @豆友友 wrote in a Douban post, "many people come through WeChat Moments or recommendations from relatives and friends."

However, @张禧芮's strength lies in her ability to output emotional content, and to build a bond of trust with users . In conjunction with the guest photos of the current issue, she will share her shooting inspiration, interactive stories with users, and personal thoughts and opinions in the copy. For example, in a guest photo, she described "growing up means a sense of relaxation and loneliness coexisting", which perfectly fits the light and shadow and emotional expression of the picture. This note won her 766 likes.

@张禧芮Little Red Book account screenshot

Slightly different from @张禧芮's emotional photo style, @樱洁啊, who is based in Beijing, is good at film photo style. The account has been updating notes since 2019. As of now, it has gained 31,000 followers. The note traffic is relatively stable, and hot items appear from time to time.

Analyzing the reasons, on the one hand, in terms of style, Japanese magazine style and film style have a larger user base, and the bright colors make it easier for users to click and view the notes when they see them; on the other hand, the mention of keywords such as seasons and places in the copy also makes the notes gain a lot of search traffic. For example, in a popular note "Old Beijing Characteristic Film Photo", Drum Tower, red ox horn button coat, candied haws, Kodak film, etc. constitute the copy keywords, attracting more interested users.

In the comment area, nearly 200 users "politely asked for prices". In addition, in order to expand the audience, the photographers will also share their own "photography secrets" under the customer's photos, including lens parameter settings, clothing strategies, and scene selection tips.

For example, a note posted by @樱洁啊 in October 2021 received 12,000 likes and 13,000 collections. It shared a collection of personal photo poses. The highly practical notes not only limit the audience of the account to users who are willing to make appointments for photo shoots, but also reach more users step by step through customer photos, experience, and strategy notes, thereby tapping into potential groups.

3. Can you make money?

From "making appointments to encourage each other" to charging for cash, @豆友友's turning point came in August this year. Because of a group of photos with a strong atmosphere, the number of likes on her notes has improved, and many people have come to ask for the price. After the price was determined, she received seven deposits in one day. Of course, the price of appointments is not fixed, but depends on the photographer's quality and the number of fans.

The prices of the several bloggers that Kasi follows are mostly between 199 yuan and 499 yuan, which is more acceptable to users. For example, @污波波PHOTO, who has 2,000 followers, charges 499 yuan for a set of photos containing 9 retouched photos and 50 to 100 base photos. She pinned this price note to the top of the page and received nearly 500 likes.

Another example is @张禧芮, who was mentioned above. She offers high-end photo customization in Xiaohongshu. On her personal homepage, @张禧芮 has published a price list for portrait photography. The basic personal package is priced at 999 yuan, including 12 retouched photos, no less than 200 negatives, a set of clothing and makeup services, and a shooting time of 2 to 3 hours. The price for advanced personal customization is 1,699 yuan.

She described her schedule as "busy but fulfilling". "Basically, the first month of the month is fully booked, but there is no overflow to the following months. The average monthly income is 15,000 yuan." For influencers who have accumulated a considerable number of fans, their monetization channels also include knowledge payment. For example, @小饭团儿Midy, who has 106,000 fans, has three levels of portrait photography courses priced at 1,999 yuan, 1,399 yuan, and 999 yuan; the photography post-production course includes 4 recorded classes and 10 live photo editing classes, priced at 899 yuan.

Those who can successfully take this monetization path are often experts backed by MCN or creators who have established their own studios.

@小饭团儿Midy screenshot of Xiaohongshu account

But like any other track, the monetization capabilities of top talents and mid-level talents are polarized : mature photographers have been scheduled for several months, but many talents who have been in the market for one or two years are still struggling to make a profit. For ordinary creators, the instability of traffic is undoubtedly fatal.

At present, Xiaohongshu's traffic mainly comes from search recommendations and tag recommendations. The former comes from Xiaohongshu users' spontaneous search behavior, while the latter is based on the correlation between geographic location and tags. This means that "title party" is effective, and keywords in notes may also be captured by the system, which will generate unexpected search traffic. For this reason, many bloggers have compiled a set of popular formats that have been verified by the market.

However, even so, traffic metaphysics is still elusive . In Douban groups, posts about traffic metaphysics emerge endlessly, and sometimes even the creators themselves don’t know why a note can suddenly get thousands of likes. @豆友友 also mentioned in the post that the photographers who studied with her at the same time, "Some of them have made appointments with more intelligent models for long-term cooperation and their followers have increased quickly, while others have taken off with thousands of likes for a high-quality note."

On the other hand, Xiaohongshu's marketing is also becoming increasingly fierce . Xiaohongshu users with more than 300 followers can be called KOCs. In the entire platform, even in niche tracks such as "shooting appointments" that have certain technical barriers and have not yet become a red ocean, there are still countless such KOCs, and they will increase. In addition, vicious competition at low prices, coupled with copyright issues caused by stolen pictures, and "lightning avoidance posts" due to aesthetic differences, are all affecting the monetization ability of influencers . "Photographic equipment can easily cost tens of thousands of yuan, and sometimes it is difficult to make a profit."

There are not a few players who say this. The aesthetic needs and consumption orientation of users are constantly changing. But it is worth noting that in addition to the mainstream e-commerce promoted by Xiaohongshu, many niche businesses such as "shooting appointments" have quietly emerged. "Making a living by skills" has become the general voice of young people.

For example, the "photo editing" sideline business that was popular not long ago took on the needs of young people who were unwilling to do photo editing but wanted exquisite photos. Creators often compared the original photos with the refined photos to show their business capabilities, and the lowest price could be "rolled" to 2 yuan. Another example is "home cooking", a note posted by @Wangwang Broken Ice Ice in Nanjing, the price of four dishes is 78 yuan.

With the shadow of pre-prepared meals still looming, this type of cooking service has become popular because it is “healthier than takeout.”

The hand-painted track also performs well.

Kas observed that @哈哈昂, who has 600,000 followers on Xiaohongshu, initially quickly became famous for his hand-painted cute character avatars. During the World Cup, @哈哈昂 kept up with current affairs and created an emoticon pack of the heartbroken prince of Qatar, which received 26,000 likes.

What are the future prospects of these niche businesses? Kass continues to pay attention.

Author: Chu Cheng

WeChat public account: Kas Data