7 Ways to Use Your Personal Branding Photos
A Personal Branding photo session is an investment, not just in yourself, but also in your business. That being said, it’s one of the few investments you’ll make that is almost guaranteed to bring you a net positive result in both time and money.
In this post, we’ll go over 7 different ways you can use your Personal Branding photos in your business to achieve growth, professionalism, and success.
On your Website
If you own your own business, you probably have a professional website that talks about who you are and what you do. Using personalized and unique imagery on your website is one of the best ways to build your brand and instill confidence in potential clients who are just getting to know you. We can all tell whether a photo is a stock image or not, so having photography that looks high end and is completely custom to your business is key to having an instantly trustworthy website. You can further use your Personal Branding photographs for any Blog posts or articles you write and publish on your website. It’s much better than spending hours trying to find a stock photo that fits your topic and every image will be 100% on brand, too.
Your Profile photo
Whether it’s LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram, updating your profile photo across all social media platforms is a no-brainer. In fact, it’s the first thing you should do. You can use a more casual portrait for Instagram and Facebook and a more professional/serious image for LinkedIn, or you can choose one photo for all platforms. The biggest benefit of doing this is consistency and professionalism. And this goes beyond professional platforms, too. Don’t forget your personal email profile photo, YouTube account, Twitter, Pinterest, and anything else you use online that you might not automatically think of. If a potential customer can find you on any of these platforms, you’ll want to make sure it stays consistent with the professionalism you present elsewhere.
Instagram and Facebook posts
If you’re an entrepreneur, small business owner, solo-preneur, or run your own multi-person company, having an arsenal of custom imagery to post on social media is incredibly helpful. Once again, using stock photography or photos you download off Google Image Search isn’t the best idea if you’re trying to come across as an expert in your field. Professional photography is also better than DIY iPhone shots because they do look better and can truly illustrate the point you’re trying to get across easier than with words. Most of all, having a portfolio of images saves you time - countless hours of hunting down appropriate images gets reduced down to just a couple of minutes scrolling through your own custom photo gallery.
Magazine articles
Whether it’s an online publication, local magazine, or a nationally distributed one, having a handful of professional headshots or behind-the-scenes business photos to submit with your article is incredibly useful and will set you apart from other submissions. This is especially useful if you have a brick and mortar store location because part of your Personal Branding Session can include interior photography of the space. Magazines are always looking for imagery to go with their articles and by providing high resolution and high quality photographs you get full control over what the editorial essay looks like in printed (or digital) form. I’ve worked with many businesses who were able to promote their business for free by submitting pieces to local magazines and some clients who were prominently featured in magazines simply because their headshot was better quality than others.
To sell products/services
If you have an online store, it’s fairly obvious that you should have photography that shows off your products from several angles and also in-use so that your customers can easily make a purchase online. But if you provide a service instead of selling tangible goods, it’s equally as important to have photography that showcases the full range of benefits of hiring you. Personal Branding images can visually illustrate how you work with your clients and allow potential customers to feel comfortable taking the next step in reaching out to you. This is why it’s so important to plan a Personal Branding Session ahead of time and have a cohesive approach to the goals we’re looking to accomplish with the resulting images - not only does it make the session go quicker, but it also allows us to capture strategic imagery in greater variety than we would otherwise.
Email Marketing
If you’re not building/keeping an email list of your customers, you’re missing out on one of the only safe ways to keep a client database. Relying on Instagram or a Facebook group in order to keep in touch with your customers can often result in the rug being pulled out from under you unexpectedly. There have been way too many tragic stories of people with massive followings having to start over because their account got hacked or suspended by Facebook. If you don’t have a separate list, outside of any other platform, you’re relying on an outside corporation for your livelihood! But once you do have and maintain that client list, it’s equally important to stay in touch with your people. It’s so much easier to put together an email and create content when you already have custom imagery ready to go. My suggestion is to utilize content you create for your Blog or social media and repurpose it for emails as a way to reach those clients that aren’t on the other platforms. Your emails will stand out and you will keep up with being “top of mind” for potential and return clients of your business.
Advertising (online and print)
Every business needs clients… and the best way to reach them is sometimes through advertising, online and in print. Depending on how your clients find you, it might make sense to create online ads that run on Facebook and Instagram or pay for a print ad in a local or national magazine. This is another circumstance where you want the photography you use in your ad to stand out in terms of looking good and also not looking like a stock photo. We are all trained by experience to ignore advertising and the more personable you can make your ad, the more likely it is that it will catch the attention of the people looking at it. Either way, investing in custom imagery can go a long way in differentiating your business from everyone else’s!
Investing in professional photography for your business isn’t always an easy decision. There are, after all, an infinite number of things you could spend that money on. As someone who’s run their own business since 2013, I know there have been many things and services I purchased that didn’t actually end up being worth it. But when you start taking your business seriously and have a desire to do things the right way, investing in custom personal branding photography becomes a very obvious decision.
Custom professional photography can save you time by streamlining your social media, help you make more sales by professionally showcasing your products online, quickly build trust with potential customers, and eliminate imposter syndrome because you will finally show up in a way that’s professional and 100% authentic to who you are.
Personal Branding Sessions aren’t for everyone. You really have to be at a certain point in your journey in order to get the most out of this photoshoot. That means you have to be serious about your business and making money, not just have a hobby. And you have to be willing and ready to take it to the next level.
If a Personal Branding Session sounds like something that might be useful for your business, click below to learn more.
