Practice what you preach

So prior to launching my Personal Brand Photography Instagram account, I thought I’d better do a bit of personal brand photography of myself.

Because if I’m going to bang on about needing these kind of pictures for your business, I need to practise what I preach. And I don’t have time to mess about taking pictures of myself every day when I should be busy taking pictures of other people. Best get them done now.

I’m totally up against it, like everyone else, with a big lack of time. I post to my social media accounts while feeding my baby, or cooking dinner. The child free time I have is generally needed for taking pictures and editing, or doing boring things like housework or admin that you need two hands for. So it really helps to have a little catalogue to dip into.

But, you know, it’ll run out and I’ll need to create even more content soon enough. It’s so frustrating. I know what I need to do to promote my own photography business. I know what I should have content wise. I know what kind of pictures would be good for my own ‘personal brand’. Just like I know what and how much I should post to social media. What I need to do to my website, what blogs I need to write, what SEO work I need to do. But it’s time. Time time time. Timne that I don’t have nearly enough of, because I try to squeeze full time work into part time (very part time!) hours. And that’s not going to change anytime soon.

I also know that brand photography is very different to the family photography I do. It’s a different audience, different type of client. And it needs it’s own style of social media marketing based on that. So another Instagram account.... more posts that need doing. More images needed. More to do and no extra time to do it.

So I need content. My own content library. A folder of stuff to just grab from that folder when I’m posting on my social media accounts as I stir the pasta. No hunting around when I think “oh shit, I need a picture to go with that”. Instead it’s all ready and waiting to go.

So I spent a few weeks finding little snippets of time to take pictures and write blogs. Which for most people, this lockdown situation has been a brilliant time to do that. But without childcare I’ve had even less time. This blog was written stood next to Leo’s cot stroking his forehead trying to settle him down for his nap (he’s teething and very cranky). I wrote it in my notes app on my phone, ready to copy and paste later. Which is how I write most of my blogs.

And that is my personal brand. Busy mum trying desperately to juggle kids and work.

And time is definitely a huge issue for working mums and ‘mumpreneurs’ especially. But I think any small business owner has a real problem with time for things like this. I certainly did when I had my fancy dress shop before kids. Because as a small business owner you are everything - the cleaner, the marketing manager, the sales person, the book keeper, the IT support, the social media manager. Too many hats, not a big enough hat stand.

So having a folder full of great images that reflect you and your business ready to go whenever you need an image is a big help. And that is where having someone taking pictures for you is just brilliant. Just a one hour photoshoot can give you enough for a couple of weeks or even a couple of months. And if you usually spend half an hour trying to get a semi decent pic for just ONE social media post, that’s a much more efficient way of erring it done and freeing you up to do all the other things you have to try squeezing into your day. And even better, if the content is all there ahead of time you can even schedule your posts ahead of time, using one of the many social media scheduling tools out there.

So obviously I am an advocate for personal brand shoots. It’s what I do, so I’m bound to be. But I can’t express enough just how handy it is to have that folder ready to go for me.

If you’d like to have a chat about just how helpful a personal brand shoot could be, give me a shout. I’d love to to chat through what we could do that would suit your business needs before you decide whether to book a session. So get in touch and see how I might be able to help!