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Branding Photoshoot Reveal

So we led y'all up into this point. You saw a lot of the behind the scenes. You saw the props that we used. We saw who we were marketing to. Now, we know who they are, we know who they're marketing to and we know what the shoot looked like and now we're gonna see the results of their efforts. The results of their efforts for number one, showing up not knowing what they were getting into entirely. Showing up and being vulnerable, showing behind the scenes, they were some of the last people to leave yesterday and I was one of the last people to leave yesterday and our paths crossed. And they were like, "We're exhausted." And I was like, "So am I". And they're like, "It was really hard watching ourselves shown." And they were like, "You probably feel the same way." And I was like, "Absolutely." Now you feel it hard in a different way, because you feel exposed and like everybody's watching and then what you see is all the things you could have, should have, maybe, perhaps could have done, ...

and what I see is like, ooh, those photos need a little retouching. Ooh, those photos need to be a little bit focused. Ooh your directions need to get a heck of a lot better and you wanna know what? It is what it is. And what I wanted to show is, again, storytelling, arc, narrative, the hero's journey, is we feel more inclined to the protagonist, the main person, after have seen that person go through a really low point. If we can show what we went through the valley to get to the peak, and once we get to the peak, what are our protagonists going to do with that content? I presented a gallery of images to our business owners. Now somebody asked in the chatroom, "How many photos should a branding photographer give away?" That is not what I'm here to say, because branding photographers, some branding photographers give away 30 images. Some branding photographers give away 300. That is what you negotiate with your branding photographer. That is what you negotiate in how long the shoot is. We shot, a total in the studio, we were in the studio for about, I think four hours. But I was not shooting each business for two hours each. We had a ton of setup, we had a lunch break, we had filming, we had a bunch of behind the scenes. When I say how much time I actually shot each business owner, I'm thinking we were parking around the 60 to 75-minute mark, in totality. From the 60 to 75-minute mark, they had around 125 images in their gallery. But hey, that's what I got. That's what we chatted about and that's where we stood. What I wanna do is create a direct reflection of their brands and I wanna make sure that they feel like they have a plan and strategy to execute beyond that. I wanted them to have enough content to post every day on social media for 30 days. That was the goal. Now we're going to see how things transpired. What we are going to do now is we are gonna do a branded photo shoot No. Photo, yes photo shoot reveal. And we're gonna do this, 'cause I wanna show you visually how cool it could be now that you know your categories. So using the Social Curator seven categories, I've selected photos to go along with that. We're gonna dive into Highway 3. This can be the start of a behind-the-scenes photo. Here it's showcasing you getting a photo shoot prepped and ready. Highway 3, About us, we have a ton of photos for you all. Highway 3, your why. This is showcasing a product but imagine putting like a diptych of this on Instagram, or doing a series of Instagram stories, and your why is you want to personalize products for moms to have special experiences with their children. The benefits? Hey imagine this on Instagram, join us for an Instagram live as we talk about the top 10 Christmas planning tips. Join us live to learn how to wrap your Christmas gifts. Join us live for a Mother's Day card making live event. Things that you need, construction paper, crayons and tape. So you're doing content that's not selling the product but building brand awareness. Here's a photo of you showcasing the product. We have two blankets next to each other, and we're again thinking about an overall clear feed. So then they wanna buy it. Absolutely. Why? Because we're selling to the emotion. We're selling to the emotion. (chattering and laughing) The benefits that we're gonna be driving to these moms is that their kids are gonna be excited to unbox something that was carefully created for them. Here we have inspiration. This could also work for a Facebook ad on that white space there, putting something over it. We have stuff that people can look at. Moms can be inspired to buy gifts and personalize them for their own kids. So it feels real, it doesn't feel so ad, but it's also really pretty. Okay, cool. Now we're gonna get into Indigo Tide Market. Caitlin, we're gonna be doing some behind the scenes photos that are going to personalize an experience of how somebody would be working with you. So imagine you starting you starting your morning off with a cup of coffee. We have Indigo Tide Market inspiration, here again we could totally use this as a Facebook ad and we could put text on the top, we can move the photo over, create white space on the side, have graphics about what you're inspired by that week. Here we have Indigo Tide Market personal insight. So you can talk about originality and how originality, people could say it doesn't exist on Amazon, especially if people are white labeling and then you explain why it does. Indigo Tide Market, your why. We have pictures of you holding photos of vacation, your family, really putting you out there and what you do it for. Indigo Tide Market your about me. This is direct to camera, about me photos work extraordinarily well to showcase who you are and market differentiation. Indigo Tide Market the benefits. You map out your next step for your Amazon sale. Tying in the maps, memo books, writing notes and those Jamaica shells that I broke yesterday after the shoot. (laughing) I'm glad we have a photo of the thing I broke. Way to go, way to go branding photographer. And Indigo Tide Market, showcasing your product or service. So these are just sneak peeks, we're gonna get into the gallery in a second. But before we do that, let's talk about now, that we've seen a peek of what we could be posting for the next 30 days. What I want to encourage you to do is to invest in a planning app for Instagram posts. I know that you guys are working with Planoly, and you are working with Plann. These are two great apps. I love 'em. I think that they're fantastic and they really empower you to streamline your planning process. So once we get into understanding Plann and Planoly, we're gonna get into actually planning out your 30 days of content. So that's what we're gonna be doing. One thing I wanna quickly talk about is this is when we go about staggering content. Earlier you had asked, "Do we need to create unique content for Facebook? "And do we need to create unique content for Instagram?" And if you have the time and the budget and the content team to do that, that would be amazing. 97% of our markets, myself included, do not have the budget for independent content. But what I can say is I'm a firm believer of staggering the content. So I can post something on Thursday morning on Instagram and post the same thing on Monday night on Facebook. So what we're doing is just staggering content, but remember we're keeping the conversations native to each platform, and notice that I didn't say to have a Facebook planning app. Why? Using Facebook to schedule itself. Facebook has the scheduler. Yeah, I've used it a little bit. You will hear it from me first, if Instagram comes out with a scheduler, it would probably be best to use that. The platforms are going to favor their own stuff. Now what I would love for you guys to do, and this is what we're gonna do over the lunch break, you're gonna plan your content, lay it out, and then you're gonna get that content and you're gonna go into Facebook and you're just gonna create, all the content's gonna be written, all the photos are gonna be done, all you do is just place 'em on different days and times. Because the reason why I encourage people not to do it at the same time is because studies have shown that people are platform hoppers, so if you have time to randomly scroll Instagram, there's a good chance you're like, "Oh, I'll just pop on over to Facebook." At the same time. At the same time. So if you're posting with the same time, algorithmically you're owned by the same company, there's a good chance that if you like a Facebook page and you like the same Instagram account and you're posting content at the same time, they're gonna see the same thing. So what we wanna do is show people different content. And statistically speaking, the people who are following you on Instagram on Thursday morning are probably not gonna be able to see that content on Monday night. It's just behavior so we wanna make sure that not unique content, just staggered content. Just saying caption wise, different towards your different... Just like removing hashtags, those @ mentions, the reposts. Oh okay. I could be the same, thanks for the clarification. 'Cause I was wondering that too. I was like, do I have to write twice? If we plan 30 Facebook and 30 Instagram, we can use those same captions, we aren't planning 60 different captions. No. Same captions, same photos. Make it native to the platform. Any time you would @ mention on Instagram, all you have to do now is tag the Facebook page. That makes a lot more sense. Cool, great. Now that we've seen a sneak peek, now that we know the categories, now that we're ruminating over topics, now that we know how to stagger the content, we're not gonna feel so overwhelmed 'cause we're like, "Okay, it's a lot, "but we're gonna break it down into steps." The next step when it comes to, just Caitlin had said, "Oh do we need to have 60 captions." The answer is no. And the reason why I believe strongly is because there is a psychology of a caption. Any time you put a caption out, I want you to have one goal in mind. And that one goal is to create connection. That's it. Connections convert. Connections sell. But so often, people lead with the sale and there's never connection that's made. So every time you put out a caption, ask yourself, does this connect with my dream customer? Now that we know the psychology of a caption, the thing we need to then focus on is the anatomy of a caption. What makes a caption work? How do we know? I'm a total nerd, I have geeked out about writing, copywriting, conversion writing. I'm a blogger at heart, I started with blogger, I just love writing. I love how to understand what people are engaging with. We're gonna break this down easy as possible. There's three main parts to an effective caption. The hook, insights and call to action. The hook, Instagram will only show two lines of copy. That is why we gotta get in right in the beginning. We gotta make them read more, because people are just scrollin', scrollin', scrollin' so the anatomy of a caption is how do we start 'em? How do we stop their scroll and have them click more, that's what we call the hook. Inside of a caption, two to three insights. This is where we go to creating connection. Every insight you share, create connection. And lastly, call to action. I love a call to action on every single post, 'cause a call to action is what encourages engagement. So a call to action doesn't mean go buy my blanket. A call to action isn't book appointment. A call to action is tag a friend, leave a comment, sign up for this class, join this challenge, a bunch, a bunch, a bunch. We want people to do something, to give an opportunity to engage. When I tell people, "Hey guys, this is the "psychology of a caption, this is the anatomy of a caption," people are like, "Yeah, this is great," and then they come back and they're like a day later, "Oh God, Jasmine, my mind goes blank. "Jasmine, I don't know what to say. "Jasmine, I'm not a writer, I'm a business person, "I don't write." Or, "Jasmine, I'm doing everything in my business, "my brain is fried by the time I open my phone at 7: "when the kids are in the bath "to post something on Instagram, I'm done." I got that, I understand that in a deep and profound way. What we want to do, is because I am expecting so much from you guys in a single night, is we have Social Curator caption templates. So now that you know we have categories, and now that we know you can personalize with a segment of topics, these templates are gonna guide the conversation according to category. We wanna break this down step by step. Average time to write a caption. I did a poll, like 900 people responded. And more than 50% said it takes them 15 to 30 minutes to write a caption. That is not-- Type, delete, type, delete. That is not including finding the photo, editing the photo, and/or shooting the photo, finding the appropriate hashtags, tagging the right people and geo tagging. People are actually spending an hour in change for a social media post, and then no wonder people are like, "I hate it and it takes forever." We have said, "We gotta streamline this for business owners "so that we keep business doing the thing that they have, "to spend time with people they love." Social curator captions are templates to give you the framework. We've given you the framework, now you get to personalize. You can keep as much or as little as you want, but now we're laying it. What you would do, you guys now have access to Social Curator, you can log into your members area and you're gonna hit your subscription and in your subscription for each month, you will now see the category. Here listed we see benefits. This is a caption template according to the benefits, now we know what your benefits are for your moms, now we know the benefits are for your dream customers, your aim is on resellers and what you see are blanks. You are going to fill in the blanks with words and verbiage that are close to you. You can change as much or as little of the copy and now we know who we're targeting. Now you'll also see on the left-hand side, we shoot lifestyle stock photography for business owners who don't have the time or the money to have their own photo shoot, so no excuses. So some people come, it was just for the photos, some people just use this for the captions, some people use this as the whole kit and caboodle. Here again, we have a category, behind the scenes tutorial. Fill in the blanks, personalize. Now let's just say, y'all are preparing for a photo shoot. You're preparing for a photo shoot. You can go through the month and there you'll see photo ideas. Now you can just plan your own branded photo shoots and say, "Oh, God, I don't know what to think about. "Well, we need a calendar for a to-do list, "we need a big check mark, "I'm gonna get a marker and a check mark." So you come up with the ideas and then put the photos. Absolutely. So it's like we're almost working in the reverse. Yes, because you have the content. But furthermore, because you have the strategy. So that's the main thing that I really wanna take away. And we're gonna show the full gallery in a second. But before we get to the gallery, I've discovered that if people see a lot of stuff, they immediately get distracted because their creative brain starts working. So the main thing to think about and note is that it is about content. It's not just about content, it's about the strategy behind the content. I work closely with branding photographers and I love it because it's like legitimately the wild west in photography. This niche has never existed up until a couple years ago. The people who are branding photographers now and making a name for themselves, are literally the people in the gold rush hills of California when that happened. They're out there trying to dig up the gold and figure out what's working. It is hard to be a branding photographer. Because people aren't putting the monetary value on the same amount of time that it takes to create the content. That's just facts. And so we're talking about, on the inside of the group as a photographer, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a CEO, I am a creative, I'm all those things. But when I see a certain group of people who are outside hustling and hurting, I'm gonna be like, "I wanna be there." So on the inside of Social Curator, I put out a call for anybody who is a branding photographer to come on and we had a live chat. Because the thing is is that there's a lot of secrecy in industries where people don't wanna talk about how it's done. And my mind is, "Listen, you are not my competition "and you are not my competition, you are not my competition. "I am my own competition. "I hope we all win." And the way that we all win is we have to change an entire industry and the way that people are thinking. If you think you can change the minds of people who are investing in branding photography by yourself, (claps) good luck with that one. (audience laughing) If you have a group of people who all make a concerted decision to change the way that the behaviors are acting for entrepreneurs who are investing in photography, now we're having a different conversation. So we got into a conversation that had 60 people join us for just a Zoom chat, and we're talking about what are you doing, and what are you doing and what are you doing and what's working? And the biggest thing that I heard that blew my mind, is that these branding photographers are saying, "I'm trying to get my customers to come back "and buy another branding session, "but they're not using the photos from the shoot." And I was like, "Wait? "You say that you put together a really great shoot "that you like, and then your customers "aren't using all of them, and so as a result of them "not using all of them, they're not gonna call you "and book you for another shoot." And they say, "Exactly." So they have the images and they're not posting the images. And crazy enough, this is the same conversation that I had with Highway 3. They're like, "Jasmine, we have done other photo shoots "on multiple times, and we're not using all of 'em." And I'm like, "Whoa, this is a real thing." Yesterday at lunch, I'm sitting there, I have a chat with Chelsea and Chelsea says, "I have a branding photo shoot every single month, "and you wanna know what? "I have rollover sessions because I'm not even using "the images from the shoots I've done before." And I'm like, "(exhale) Whoa, okay." I think what this comes back down to is a small business owner being intimidated. They have the content, they don't have the strategy. That's just what it is. If you are a branding photographer watching this, or you're a small business owner and you want to work with a branding photographer, I want you to walk away with a confident strategy and the way that we get the strategy is understanding how every photo can be used. And I'm gonna tell you something that was really unpopular as I had this conversation with the branding photographers. I was like, "Guess what friends? "You now have to teach people how to use the content." And people just wanna show up and be like, like it's a wedding, people get what to do with the wedding photography, people get to know what to do with family photography, people get to know what to do with product photography, people have no idea what to do with branding photography. So then I said, "Hey guys, so then you can have "an add-on package to say, I'll do your social media," but who the heck wants to do that if you're a branding photographer, so I was like, "That's an option, I don't think "it's a viable option. "I think you should create content "on teaching people how to use their branding photos. "You become a branding photo expert. "Your social channels become a media outlet, "teaching people how to use branding photos, "regardless if they hire you." That's the nature of the game. And here's the thing, let me be very clear, I'm not talking to branding photographers right now. I'm talking to business owners period. You have to teach people how to use the thing you're trying to sell, that's just it. And you're like, "I didn't get in that game." Okay, you don't have to be on social. This is how social works, I'm painting it out for you. Now that we know that people aren't using their images because they don't have a strategy, it's your job as a branding photographer, it's your job as an entrepreneur to whoever your customer is, to show them how it's done. Now in this particular case, I'm gonna show you a gallery of images from Highway 3 to see, "Hey guys, this is what we've prepared," and then we're gonna have to connect the dots with the caption templates we just spoke about. We're gonna watch their gallery right about now. Now what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at your gallery, because from the patterns of studying the way that business owners plan, for their social media when they have a strategy, is they'll start with their image and then they work backwards to find a caption that works for them. So let's start there. We are going to start here with Highway 3. And these photos are not in order, but just give you an overview of what your gallery will look like. Now I have included, you'll notice, "Hey Jasmine, you didn't shoot strawberry goods "and you didn't shoot kids games "and you didn't shoot donuts." Well, these are Social Curator photos that I've included in your gallery that you can use as placeholders if you guys decide to, to see if they continue to be on brand. So I know that you guys like pulled quotes, so we can kind of find stuff that's going to ultimately attract your dream customer, still stay on brand, you don't have to use 'em, but just saw visually how they could possibly connect. Yeah. Let's go to this foxy babe right here. You look so pretty. So here we have stock imagery that have been on brand. We have content and what we're sort of seeing is how we can see visually, from a visual perspective, how things could connect. It looks so good. (chattering) This stock photo of the ice cream in the red and the pink, you could have it visually in a newsletter next to this photo and it just stays on point. Or you can create a carousel ad on Facebook, and test the carousel ad with colors and imagery that showcase who you are, as well as the content you guys are creating. We've created your own stock imagery that connects a little bit more with things that were on brand. This photo, you guys, looks so cute. I like that one. (Jasmine laughing) No, but I like how you guys are showcasing product in really a fun way, but the products are strategically placed to really compliment the curves. Look at how cute you guys are. You guys look really good there, I love your tatt, I love the bracelets, I love the pillow. It's showcasing so much of your personality without having to use words. I felt like here you guys would do a celebration. That's just all of the content you guys brought to the photo shoot. And then the dog and his... I mean, that is just so hilarious. The boys just turned it up. And so what we absolutely could do, you could drag this into Photo Shop and just clean up those lines. That's a product shot that would stop somebody in their scroll. So you guys are probably looking at this gallery being like, "There was a lot of photos in there "that we didn't see shot." Like I had mentioned, the photo shoot itself was about 75 minutes. This is not a branding photography workshop so what we decided to do is to take all the photo shoot footage and include it as bonuses on the inside of the course for people who invest. We just wanted to make sure that we're just showing you the snippets so that we can make sure and connect the dots. Show you the peaks, show you the valleys and then show what business owners have at the end of a photo shoot and now what we're gonna do is a photo shoot reveal of Caitlin, and Caitlin, as a reminder, is a service-based business owner. We're gonna get into that right about now. Now we get into Caitlin, so we'll see the distinct difference. It was really product driven on your side, and Caitlin actually built a personal brand, it's gonna be a lot more dependent on Caitlin showing up. Specifically because those are the accounts that inspired you and where the gap in the market currently exists. So again, this is a Social Curator photo but blends very well with what you're working with. This right here, I have globes are part of Social Curator so I included them as part of this that would work well. So we went outside, I really like how the light definitely hit her and then here, this was when Caitlin was doing her Instagram stories yesterday, but we could do this to be like, "Join me for an Instagram live, I'll be on Facebook." Caitlin also loves kombucha which is part of a brand extension. Here we have notes, like the importance of writing thank you notes, the importance of showing up and creating connections, that is a Social Curator lifestyle stock photo but blends really well with your aesthetic. You just look nice and approachable. Imagine this scrolling through Instagram. Some of these photos are entirely curated by you, some of them are from Social Curator and then you showing up and you having the ability to create a brand extension by way of showing up. Now this is a Social Curator photo but here's it's like, "What are the six pieces to having your account stand out." We're basically creating content for you to create conversations without you having to spend a lot of time for it and have captions that match with this. So we do a lot of quote cards too, so we thought that this one, "Know your worth and then add tax," would be great for an Amazon reseller. Okay, cool. I'm glad you guys are agreeing. And so here we also included some lifestyle imagery of celebration because we want you clients to celebrate, know when to celebrate their small wins along the way. And more than anything, we wanted to show you working. Also create personalization and kind of make you feel like you could be somebody's friend, somebody that they wanna chat with or talk to. So here, I think Tammy shot this photo to make it look like you were consulting. (laughing) (talking over one another) So that will get you guys a start. Because what's gonna happen during our lunch break is you guys are going to select 30 images that you will use for the next 30 days. We are going to select the 30 images, use it as a framework, and when we come back, we're gonna be writing some captions and matching them together. Okay cool. Awesome. Okay, I hope you guys get the gravity of what was happening 'cause I was looking at their faces and they were trying to keep it cool on camera, but you know in the back of their mind they're like, "Oh my God." (laughing) I was like, "It's a working lunch, "we're gonna go, go, go, get it together." I literally threw them into the fire. And the amount of gratitude and respect that I have for these business owners to do the stinkin' hard work. And guess what? They didn't even know what they were scared of. They came back the next day after fighting a war and they were like, "What the heck just happened." And they did it.