How To Organize a Photoshoot For Your Brand

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Planning A Branding Photoshoot

A photoshoot for product branding is a styled photoshoot that has been intentionally planned to creatively show off a company’s brand in photographs that will be used in emails, blogs, videos, social media, for marketing, or a website. I believe doing the entire photoshoot from beginning to end in one session is best because the photos will be consistent and on point. This is also great because you will save lots of time by shooting, editing, and choosing which images to save all at once. I understand that the thought of doing a photoshoot can be quite intimidating, but with proper planning and preparation of the most important details you will have an amazing photoshoot that makes your product and brand stand out in a wonderful way.

The Right Theme

When it comes to the planning of a photoshoot, the theme is very important; it is what ties everything together. Without a theme, the photoshoot is nothing. That doesn’t mean the theme is something to worry about, quite the opposite actually. From what I’ve seen, people usually already know the theme they would like in a branding photoshoot; they just don’t realize that they know this. They think they have no idea what their photoshoot theme should be. However, what always works for me is to just think about everything I like without really focusing on trying to pick a theme. Then, I go online with those thoughts and look up some of the images that have come to my mind. Then, somehow, everything just manages to come together until I have the perfect theme for the photoshoot I’m working on.

The Right Photographer

Now that you’ve got the vision for your theme all figured out, it’s time to decide on a photographer for your branding photoshoot. The first step in the process of finding a photographer is to look into your budget. I would ask myself, how much can I afford to spend on a photographer? A good place to look for a photographer is Instagram because many of the photographers on Instagram are still trying to build up their portfolio. Therefore, they need images as much as you need them to do the images and can provide good photography for affordable prices.

Of course, once you find a photographer in your budget, you will have to meet with that person, look at their previous work to be sure that you like the style of their pictures, and make sure you could see them bringing your product shots to life within the time frame specified. It is also important for you to get along with your photographer. Once the photoshoot process is going on, you and your photographer will be spending a bunch of time together making decisions about the best lifestyle shots for business to show off your brand. Sometimes you may disagree, but you must be able to work together to come up with a solution to any problematic situation within the photoshoot.

The Right Location

The location of a styled photoshoot is very important because it determines the type of model you should hire for your photoshoot, what type of makeup will be needed for your model, what the model should wear, how the model should pose, and which props will be needed for the background. To pick the right location for product shots of your brand, you want to be sure the place is meaningful. Do not just pick a location because it is close by and convenient for you. If you have a better idea in your mind that happens to be farther away or takes more work to get to, you should certainly try your best to shoot there.

When looking for a good location for lifestyle shots for business, it is best to try to get as much natural light in as possible. This will make everything in your images brighter, better, and more realistic to those that view it. It is also a great idea to choose a location that is pretty quiet without many people or distractions around. This is because in crowded places full of people you will waste a bunch of time waiting for strangers to move out of a shot when they’re walking by and on their curious questions and stares. Not only that, but your model will have to deal with all those things too which could make him/her self-conscious and unable to pose for the photoshoot naturally. A great way to get a good location on a budget is by going with an Airbandb because there are so many high-class options of the best types of places with great lighting and views for a relatively low amount. Having a place like that could literally make your photoshoot a great success.

The Right Model

To find the model that is best for your photo shoot, you should remember that it isn’t about finding a professional model. Sometimes going for a professional model is the wrong way to go because they can tend to seem fake. Since these are product shots for your company, you want to make sure the target audience for your market sees themselves using your product whenever they view your branded images. This means you model has to have a genuine look that also looks good on film. Your model should also have tons of confidence in the way they walk, talk, and pose during the photoshoot.

So, where do you get a model that has a nice, confident, authentic look for a good price? Well, there are lots of places you could try online, including Instagram. However, before you head to the Internet and social media, try contacting friends, family, and friends of friends and family. You may just find the perfect model right in the mix of people that seem ordinary to you in everyday life. Those who may seem ordinary to you could end up being extraordinary to your product and brand simply because they have that “look”. Once again, you want to meet with the model before the photo shoot to ensure everyone involved with this styled photoshoot for your product brand is on the same page with the same goal. You want to make sure you get along well with this model and that you will be able to work together to bring your product visions to life.

If you work hard at choosing the right, genuine model with the right, genuine look, hair and makeup will not be that much trouble. It is best to always be prepared with a professional hair stylist and makeup artist on hand because they can do things to help make your photoshoot look better. However, you don’t want to stray too far away from the natural, genuine look of your model and a good professional hair and makeup artist will know just what to do to give your model a nice style without taking away from their natural beauty. By planning properly with a good theme, photographer, location, model, and stylist for your product branding photoshoot, I guarantee you will end up with images that your target audience will find charming and very attractive.

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10 Instagram Tips Every Beginner Should Know

By Zoya Varela • April 24, 2020

Tip #1 Stop chasing followers. More followers does not equal more sales, or more clients. Neither do likes or comments. At some point of the social media journey, we bought into the idea that the more followers we have the more successful we are. It’s far better to have less followers who are your ideal clients. A small following especially in the beginning, means that your followers are your current clients or potential clients who are interested in working with you, but have not yet decided to hire you or purchase from you. *Of course, if you are an influencer this does not apply to you. An influencer relies heavily on an engaged audience. Without the audience, there can be no influencer. Tip #2 Always include a call to action at the end of your caption. You would be surprised how much of a difference this makes. You have to tell the reader what you want them to do next. It’s like you’re taking someone on a journey and you walk away in the middle of it. It’s challenging enough to get someone to read your caption, do not lose them at the end... That’s where the sale is. Tip #3 Always tag a location in your posts. Whether you have a location based business or not, always tag a location. This helps your discoverability. If you do have a location based business, try tagging different locations within your area. It’s a waste of time and can be frustrating for the person interested in your business. Also, if you are a location based business it helps to write you address towards the end of your caption right below your CTA (call to action). Tip #4 Follow Hashtags. The follow/unfollow game has been highly popular amongst people who are trying to grow their following. It’s proven to be effective but very time consuming. If you are growing tired of the follow/unfollow game, it’s better to follow hashtags instead of accounts. This way you’ll still see and interact with your target audience without without following them. Follow as many hashtags as you like. Take 20 minutes every day to go through your feed, and comment on the posts from those hashtags. This will help increase your following if that’s what you’re after. Tip #5 Engage with your followers. Accounts that you do not have any interactions with are less likely to see what you post. About once a week, go through your follower list and like their most recent posts and leave a few comments (asking questions is very effective). They are more likely to see your posts if they engage with your account. Extra tip: If you want increased engagement rates, try engaging with your followers about 1 hour before you publish your post. People that you have recently interacted with are more likely to see your post as soon as you share it. Tip #6 Use crisp and vibrant images for your posts. Do not use blurry images for your Instagram feed. Never ever... They do not look appealing, they are actually off-putting. On an overcrowded platform such as Instagram, one of the biggest killers of your engagement is posting poor quality images. Crisp images that feel alive will always perform best. Tip #7 Add a Call To Action to your bio. If someone is reading your bio it means that they took the time to come to your page, they want to know who you are and what you do. Tell people what you can do for them and give them a call to action. It’s like asking for the sale. For example: click on the button, contact me, DM me, visit my website, comment on one of my posts, etc... What ever your goal is, tell them. Tip #8 Tell stories on Story. Use the story feature to tell stories. Your story posts can be more casual than the posts on your feed. This is a great place to share BTS (behind the scenes), short videos of you doing what you do, your products being used, etc. Let your audience in just enough to spark their interest. Stories are also great for making announcements. Also, remember to use hashtags and location tags every time! Tip #9 Include a key word in your name. This helps with your SEO and discoverability on Instagram. For example, if you are a photographer and your name is Adam Smith, add the word ‘photography’ to your name (not to be confused with username). So you would write, Adam Smith Photography for your name. Tip #10 Develop a professionally branded Instagram account. Do you ever feel frustrated because your ads don’t bring more clients? Often a client will tell me that they have tried advertising on Instagram and it hasn’t worked for them. Advertising is just one part of what marketing is all about. Here is a common scenario that a lot of business owners on Instagram can relate to. You have a small business whether it be selling goods or services, and you feel that you need more clients. you know Facebook has been nudging you and promising you more business if you promote that recent post. Sounds so appealing! You must up the courage to take the risk and start investing in ads. So far so good. You ads start performing and drive traffic to your page. That’s great! Then you wait, and wait, and wait, and nothing! How come no one is booking that appointment or buying the product you’re selling? Not even a single follow? All those eyes keep coming to your page only to turn away because they don’t get the feeling of value, trust, or even interest in your brand/service. There is a missing link. Having a professionally branded Instagram account that truly represents your brand plays a very important role in your ad game. Visually appealing, informative, fun, inviting, and exciting pages are get the upper hand.

Hashtag Tips That Will Change Your IG Game

By Zoya Varela • August 12, 2019

Hashtag Tips that Will Change Your IG Game Although social media is slowly becoming the number one marketing channel on the internet, it’s also a very crowded space. For businesses, brands, and influencers, this can be a little complicated to navigate. Making sure the content you create is being discovered by the right people is always a struggle—especially when there are thousands of brands who are perceived to be just like yours by audiences. The top questions become, “How do brands separate themselves in the growing, new marketing channel?”. While that question is pretty loaded and can depend on what type of digital platform we’re discussing, one thing about most networking platforms remain consistent—discoverability. The primary way these accounts are discovered organically is by the proper and efficient use of hashtags. Using hashtags to the best of your ability will likely ensure the right people are discovering your account. You’ll want an audience who is interested in your business and who will engage regularly which will then bring you more traffic. In order to make this happen, you have to become your own digital strategist, or of course hire an expert. Know who your target audience is. First and foremost, you’ll want to make sure you understand who your target audience is. You’ll want to make sure these are people who will find your content useful and will also invest financially into your brand. There are a few questions you should ask yourself: What am I selling? Who am I selling to? And who will benefit most from the information I share? A good way to find these people is to look at other brands, influencers, or business that sell or discuss the same things as you. Look at their following. Who is constantly liking or commenting on their posts? Did that brand use hashtags? If so, which ones did they use? By doing this, you’re able to find some of the audience members who will most likely find value in the information, product, or service you provide. Research your hashtags. The next thing you’ll want to do is research hashtags. Which one are the most common in your industry? You’ll have to be careful with this one. The key to this tip is finding ones that are commonly searched for, but not oversaturated. For example, if you’re a company that sells mattresses in your city, you’ll want to stay away from hashtags like #mattresses or #sleep. While relevant, these hashtags are way too broad and far too common. Instead, try hashtags like #CincinnatiMattresses or #findamattress. These are narrower and more likely to generate the type of traffic needed to convert to sales or participation in calls to action. Don’t use too many hashtags. It may be tempting to use as many hashtags as possible for maximum exposure. This isn’t wise. Not only does it look bad, but some digital platforms tend to view hashtag overuse as spam and limit your reach. If you’re trying to expand your audience, using too many hashtags on one post is counterproductive. A healthy number of hashtags would be anywhere from 5 to 10 depending on the networking platform. Choose your hashtags wisely. Make sure your Hashtags are the right size. Along with ensuring the proper number of hashtags, you may want to make sure you your hashtags are a practical length. Hashtags should never exceed more than two words. If you find yourself over that limit, it may be a good idea to reassess your chosen hashtag. Typically, no one is following a hashtag that long, nor are they typing it into search. Since we only get a limited number of hashtags to use, make sure they are quality ones by keeping them as concise as possible. Make sure your hashtags are useful to your target audience. Once you have an idea of the hashtags you want to use, you’ll need to assess those hashtags to make sure they line up with the audience you’re trying to reach. When trying to do this, it may be useful to go back to tip #1. Look at your audience. The people who are interested in your content will likely be the same people interested in similar content. Some platforms like Instagram allow users to follow certain hashtags. In this case you can see which hashtags users follow to determine which ones they find useful. Gather a list of relevant hashtags by seeing which hashtags members from your target audience follow. These can be added to your list of relevant hashtags. Easy! Stay away from Clickbait Hashtags. While in the process of considering hashtags and determining hashtag relevance, it may be tempting to add some hashtags that have high traffic and search value, but don’t quite relate to your content just for increased exposure. Not only does this waste your time, but it’s also annoying to users who are looking for things related to that irrelevant hashtag you posted. This could result in your posts getting flagged, or your page being blocked. After so many page blocks and flags, the platforms will begin to recognize your content as spam and possibly lower your visibility. Just don’t do it. Don’t use the same hashtags every time. Once you feel like you have a solid number of quality hashtags, you may decide that you’ll just use the same ones for each post. Try not to do this. Doing this is among the short list of things that may result in your page being registered as spam for the social media platforms. Doing this also limits your visibility. You are only opening your page to those 5-10 keyword searches each time. The best thing to do to prevent this would be to have multiple sets of hashtags that you rotate between for each post. Have a few sets of hashtags that can be used for each post in order to switch it up and diversify your content. Be creative and strategic. Keep in mind that you don’t always have to use hashtags that are commonly used. It’s quite possible that there is a search that hasn’t been placed into a hashtag yet. Feel free to add a hashtag that you may have faith in, even if there aren’t that many posts available for it. Use your own judgement based on all of our advice to add your own elements to hashtags. You may find a unique subset of audience members who are truly engaged in your content this way. Also, as a social media strategist, make sure you’re thinking strategically when utilizing and choosing your hashtags. Within the different sets of hashtags you put together, make sure each hashtag carries equal or corresponding weight to make sure your posts have the opportunity to get equal amounts of exposure. With these tips for optimizing your hashtags, you’ll definitely be on your way to increased traffic and quality engagement. Not only is having a solid digital strategy good for setting your brand up for success, it is also a major element of any sales funnel in today's digital age. Use it to the best of your ability!