In Marketing School for Photographers, recently we were on a coaching call. Every month we do coaching calls where students bring their questions or hot seats and we just talk about all things business and marketing. And one of my students brought a question that I thought
actually would be a good topic for the podcast and that was –
How to talk about personal things on social media and what that looks like?
Should I post about XYZ on my business page? Should it just be for my personal account? Basically, how much of herself she should share. And I did this very strategically in my photography business because I wanted to share things that built my personal brand and helped my ideal clients become attracted to me without oversharing. Because people don’t necessarily care about every single detail of my life, so it’s very strategic with what I shared and really only shared things that I thought would be applicable to my ideal client.
So I want to talk to you today about building that personal brand and things that you can do that are very, very specific and strategic to build your personal brand.
What is Personal Brand?
Before we get into that, I want to identify what is a personal brand because when I say brand or branding, a lot of people think that I’m talking about their business colors or their logo, but it really is more about how you make people feel when they interact with your business. That’s just a brand in general.
A personal brand is the way that you present your business to the world using yourself in the forefront. It is really kind of based on you and your life and what you choose to share with people. And why this is so amazing and why it works is because people want to buy from people. I don’t know about you, but I am going to go out of my way to buy from a friend or buy from someone who I feel like I know or is an acquaintance rather than some big business, especially when it comes to a service like newborn or birth
photography.
People want to know you and trust you and that comes with sharing a little bit of yourself online.
And another benefit of having a personal brand that I found in my photography business is that it makes creating content, so creating blog posts, creating social media so much easier because you get to be fully yourself, not like a stuffy company.
I always used to post little behind the scenes video from my newborn sessions and I would say something like, “My ovaries are about to explode or like my ovaries are screaming for another baby…” or something like that when I would show a little picture of a cute baby. And clients and people who follow me would start to DM me and joke around about “my ovaries are going to explode.” So then it kind of turned into this like hold on to your ovaries inside joke between me and a lot of my followers because of this conversation that we had had.
So just this funny, silly thing that is me showing my personality, me speaking like I would speak in real life, but it has to do with what I’m doing and it has to do with my newborn photography. And let me tell you that marketing from that place, marketing from Tavia Redburn the person, is so much easier than trying to market a professional business. If you decide you don’t want to have a personal brand, and there are legitimate reasons not to, it’s going to be more challenging to be memorable and to stand out online.
Like it would almost be like you’re a social media manager or a marketing agency posting for another business, which in my experience is a lot more difficult and it’s so much easier to market yourself and just to be yourself.
Simple Things that You Can STOP Doing Today to Start Sounding More Like a Personal Brand
1. Saying “We”
That’s one of the things that in Marketing School, we do website reviews and I’ll oftentimes catch people saying things like “We are a __________ studio.” And I’ll say, “So is it you or do you have a team?” And oftentimes they’ll say, “No, it’s just me.” I’m never gonna tell them exactly what to do, but I strongly encourage them to say “I” because that is a huge advantage that you have is to stand out by saying “I am a service, I’m a newborn photographer who offers XYZ” instead of saying “we”.
And I know people think it sounds more professional or they think it makes them sound more professional but there’s this balance where you can be professional and still personal and relatable so I’m gonna challenge you to stop saying “we” if you’re currently saying that in your website or
on social media.
2. Hiding behind your photos
I know photographers, this is so easy for us to hide behind our photos and only show photos of our work. But let me tell you what, I follow a lot of you guys on Instagram. And if your name is like Wildflower Photography and I never see a photo of your face, I have no idea what your name is, who you are, what you look like, it’s so hard to build that connection when I don’t even know your name.
And so I’m going to encourage you to get in front of the camera, do some behind-the-scenes video, take some personal brand photos that you can share, show your face on stories, do those things because that is going to help people connect with you and remember you so much faster and easier.
Simple Things that You Can START Doing Today to Start Sounding More Like a Personal Brand
1. Use your name in your marketing
Have it in your Instagram bio. I really would like for it to be in your business name, like Tavia Redburn Photography kind of thing, but I know a lot do you have different reasons for not wanting to do that. So if you’re something like Wildflower Photography, I want you to say “by (Your Name)” at the end. I wanna see your name in your business some way, somehow, so that when I’m out in the wild and I meet Jessica Smith, I’m like, “Oh, you’re Wildflower Photography, right?” It’s just another point for people to get to know you and recognize you.
Think about it like this: Joanna Gaines has the whole Magnolia brand. But we know Joanna Gaines as well as a personal brand. So if you think about it like that, you can have this brand, but attach your name to it whenever possible, that way people can get to know you.
2. I want to see your face in your marketing
I want your profile photo to be your face, not a logo. Again, I can’t connect with a logo. I can’t get to know a logo, right? But I can get to know and connect with your face. I wanna see your face at a minimum in your profile photo, but also, on your website, on your About Me page, on your feed, on Instagram, in your emails – I wanna see your face in order to connect with you.
3. Write like you speak
When you’re creating your website, when you’re writing social media posts, when you’re writing emails, I don’t want you to shift into this “Oh, I have to be super formal and professional.” I want you to be Jessica Smith, so that whenever I meet you in real life, I feel like I’ve already met you because I followed you on social media and I’ve read your posts and I’m like, “Oh, that’s totally Jessica Smith.” So write something like you would normally write it and then think, “Okay, how would I say this to a friend? If I was FaceTiming with my best friend, how would I say this? Or how would I explain this to my husband?” Don’t feel like it has to be super polished and professional.
4. Share personal stories and behind the scenes of your life
Now, I don’t really show my kids on social media, so you don’t have to show your kids if you don’t want to, but little things that show where you went or a new coffee shop you tried or where you went on date night with your husband or this new water bottle that you found at this local market that you really love. As much as you can make it local things, the better, but I just want you to share personal stories and personal behind the scenes of your life.
For example, I wrote this down because I was going to talk about it on Instagram stories and I want you to get in the habit of doing that as well. If a story comes up, I want you to write it down and talk about it on stories later. So we were sitting out in our backyard and this mouse ran by, it was at night time and we had a guest over and he like grabbed a broom and was chasing this mouse to try to kill it. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, no, don’t kill the mouse,” and he was like, “Well, do you want it to get into your house and I was like, “Well, no, but I don’t really want you to kill it.”
And so then I was torn. So it’s like, do I let him kill it or do I let it run around and probably get into my house? And then I was going to ask Instagram. I still haven’t posted this.
That is such a silly one that has nothing to do with what I do, nothing to do with photography, nothing to do with building your photography business, but it’s just something that happened that’d be a funny thing to ask what people would do.
Little things like that that come up in your life, jot them down in your Notes app, and then later when you’re like, “Shoot, what do I talk about?” Go back and look at that Notes app. Share personal stories and behind the scenes of your life. People want to connect with YOU, the person.
5. Build a community around a central theme
What is something that you’re really, really passionate about besides photography? Maybe it’s homeschooling your kids, maybe it’s homesteading, maybe it’s VBAC or home birth, and I’m speaking to my motherhood people, but if you’re in other niches, pick something that your ideal client can identify with. And so if you can build that, you can post about that, and it has nothing to do with photography, but again, you know you’re connecting with your ideal client.
Now, if I was a bride, let’s say, and my ideal client is a mom having her first baby, I’m probably not going to post a ton of things about planning my wedding, for example, because she probably already has planned a wedding. But I’m going to post about things that are going to connect with her. So if you’re not in that same phase of life as your ideal client, maybe you have been in the past or maybe you have someone who is in that phase of life and you’re posting things about your life that your ideal client can connect with. So you’re building community around this central theme.
And again, it doesn’t have to take over your feed. It doesn’t have to be every single thing that you post about, but it’s just kind of a topic or an idea or a conversation that’s woven into your regular posts.
6. Visual Identity (what brand do you personally vibe with and how can that come across in your visual brand)
I don’t want you to obsess about this, but I want you to think about what brand or what branding, what colors, font, logo, vibe, how someone makes you feel like what do you personally vibe with? And how can that come across in your visual brand?
So my favorite color is like beige. I know that’s so boring and gross, but literally my kids are like, “Mom, what’s your favorite color?” And I’m like white or brown, like literally. And so I want that to come across in my visual brand. I love clean, minimalistic, organic textures like white and brown, simplistic. That is what I like personally. And so I want that to come across in my brand.
And again, not being obsessive about it and not being obsessive about your feed necessarily, but what is something in your visual identity that you personally like that you can carry over?
7. Create a signature pose, expression, theme, etc.
Here’s my example for you: I kind of accidentally became known for the ‘I did it moment’ in birth photography. And I think that I’m the one who came up with the word ‘I did it moment’ because my clients would be like, “Oh, that moment, right after you meet your baby, that’s what I want.” And I kept hearing that over and over and I realized those were the images that I was sharing that people were resonating the most with so I started calling it the ‘I did it moment’, where you meet your baby for the first time and people began to know me and literally refer me because of that moment.
And so what is something signature, what’s something that you do, maybe if you’re a newborn photographer it’s a specific prop or a specific pose or something like that that you can be known for in your photography? Maybe if you’re a lifestyle family photographer, you’re known for like genuine
laughs and smiles. And so when people come to your feed, when they come to your website, when they come to anything where you’re sharing your work, they’re seeing laughing families and like that’s part of your brand.
8. Celebrate milestones with your followers and with your audience
When I got my very first studio, you bet I shared that like crazy with my audience and brought them along with the process. If you’ve photographed your 10th birth, celebrate that with your audience. If you’ve hit a milestone, maybe you have a hundred people who have signed up for your email list, celebrate that with your audience. People want to root for you, they want to cheer you on, and they want to be a part of this behind the scenes because when your business explodes and totally takes off, they’re going to feel like a part of it because you’ve brought them along for the journey and for their ride.
And so think about what are some milestones that I can occasionally celebrate with my audience to get them invested in me and growing my business? I saw a photographer post a reel that was like sharing my work until I hit a thousand followers and I went and clicked over to her profile and she had like 500 followers or something and I commented and I was like I’m following along like I’m invested whenever I see those posts I’m like cheering for her and I’m like going and seeing how many followers she has.
Bring people along for the ride because nobody wants perfection. People want real and that’s being real.
9. Personalize your email signature
I don’t mean like office hours, Monday through Thursday, 9-5. I mean, could you include something that adds a personal touch? Like here’s what I’m reading right now, or here’s what I’m binging on Netflix right now, or here’s my favorite Bible verse this week, or here’s my favorite quote.
I get emails from people who are like, it’s kind of like a newsletter style email, and when I get to the bottom, it’s always literally those things. It’s like what she’s reading right now, what she’s watching on Netflix, website she’s loving, apps she’s loving, like all kinds of stuff like that.
And again, that’s just another way to bring in that touchpoint to be like, “Oh, that’s how I can connect with Jessica. We both read the same book,” and then she can talk to you about it later or whatever. So think about ways that you can kind of add that in to create that extra little personal connection.
10. Day in the life IG Story Highlights and ask for opinions, etc
We’ve kind of talked about Instagram stories a little bit ready, but if you focus on the things that we talked about, the things that are going to apply to your ideal client and just share a day in the life Instagram stories and then make that your highlights. So that when people come to your Instagram profile, they can walk through a day in the life and see what it’s like. And you can even focus on that central theme, whatever that was, of like homeschooling, or homesteading, or eating organic, or whatever that is that they’re gonna connect with, leave that on your highlights so that when they come to your profile, they’re like, “Oh, this girl totally gets me.”
Now, I talked about stuff like this in even more detail and how to create it for your About Me page specifically on your website in Episode 185. So scroll back a little ways.
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And my friend, if you have a passion, it is not an accident. Not everyone loves the thing that you love. So whatever your passion is, it is there for a reason. And I hope that you’ll get out there and make it happen.
