been at this for about 6 months since i got my 107 and set up a basic website and instagram and i think ive gotten like two paying jobs. one was a friend of a friend thing and one was a small construction company that found me somehow. i post pretty regularly and the footage looks decent i think, at least people seem to like it when i post it.

i see people online talking about being fully booked and having to turn down work and i genuinely cant figure out what im doing differently. like do most drone businesses actually get clients through instagram or is that just where people post their highlights. feeling a bit stuck and not sure if i should be doing more outreach or if i just need to be patient or what. maybe my pricing is off, i honestly guessed at most of it.

instagram almost never directly generates clients in my experience, at least not until you have a pretty significant following. the work i get comes from direct outreach and referrals almost entirely. like i spent a solid month just emailing and cold calling real estate agencies, wedding planners, construction companies, roofing contractors, solar installers ? basically anyone i could think of who might actually need aerial footage for a practical reason not just to look cool. most of it went nowhere but enough stuck that i built a client base from it. it feels kind of gross to cold email people but it works way better than waiting for someone to find you on social.

also Google Business profile and just being findable locally matters a lot more than instagram for commercial work. if someone searches drone photography in your city you want to actually show up.

roofing and insurance inspection work was the thing that changed it for me. theres actually decent demand and the clients are pretty easy to work with once you learn what they need. worth looking into if you havent already, the jobs arent glamorous but they pay okay and tend to be repeat business which is honestly what you want when youre starting out.