Lessons

Lesson Info

Photo Shoots - Product & Family

And what today is mostly going to be about is a big red bow to a gift that y'all have given to yourself. So what have we, where have we been and what have we learned? Well, we learned how to create a dream customer profile. We learned what they want to see on social media. We learned how to create content that speaks directly to them. We've also learned how to build a following on Instagram. How to quite possibly consider using Facebook to grow your business in a way you didn't expect. How to strategically use direct messages to turn your followers into customers. We spoke about the aestheticism. How important is our feed now on Instagram and how much does that really matter? And we also talked about what it meant for business owners to plan and entire month of content in one day. And today that is what we are going to reveal. To proved that it actually works. Now, what I do after a long day of teaching, I go back to the hotel room and I pour over the comments in the chat because, data...

nerd, I need to know where people are so I can then position this class, Social Curator, and who I am as the perfect solution for the thing that they're looking for. And crazy enough, the thing I saw consistently was, "I tried that once and it didn't work. "I tried it for a month and that didn't work." So, the thing I have to be very, very, very clear and say is that the class was never positioned and you will never hear me say that the thing I ask you to do, that I implore you to do, will be done in a certain amount of time. Because we put these fake timelines and fake expectations of growth based on nothing but sheer desire. And our desire and reality can sometimes be aligned, but most often are not. So, if you have tried it once and say that doesn't work for me, my advice to you is if you have a proven plan and strategy, then your timeline has to be reassessed according to your efforts, your consistency, your market, your messaging and your dream customer. Also, one of the things I want to make very clear is that if we paid special attention to the things that I was talking about, and this is always been the way that I've taught, is I teach principles and I teach foundations. You learn how to show up on Facebook. You know how to show up on Twitter. You learn how to show up on Instagram. You learn how to create on IGTV. You know how to show up on YouTube. There are certain foundational components to any marketing structure that what I taught you, 80% of what I taught you applies to any platform. Yesterday, today and tomorrow. If we're dealing with social. 'Cause social is really human-to-human interaction. Now the functionalities of Instagram might not be like the next big social platform. And that's okay. You're gonna figure that out. But if you know how to show up on Facebook, you know how to show up on LinkedIn. You know how to write a blog post, you know how to show up on LinkedIn. You know how to create something for Pinterest. A nice, helpful tutorial and link it back to your blog post, and if you can do that, you can make microcosms within Instagram, and then on Facebook and then link it up to Twitter. The foundations don't change. So two, three years from now if I ever decide to come back and teach on Creative Live, guess what? 80% of this content's gonna stay the same and the 20% are gonna be nuances according to the platforms that are there. So, what we need to focus on now is how all of this comes together. How we can all take a big collective breath and say even though I am not where I want to be on Instagram, or maybe I'm not where I want to be on Facebook, that I have the foundation that's gonna parlay me into ultimately where I want to go. So, a couple things that I also read yesterday where people were, as we revealed the gallery, there was like, "Hey, Jasmine, there was a lot of photos "that were in there, that we really didn't see." And some of the things that people wanted to see is specifically when I showcased Caitlyn's gallery was a lot of the lay flats. People were like, "Oh, okay, like you can create lay flats "for your own business." And I was like, "Yeah, maybe I didn't do a good enough job "to connect those dots." And so what we're about to show you right now are how you can style your own lay flats, so that they're representative of your business. Makeup artist, music photographer, product business, direct seller. You can create your own lay flats and I want to show you quickly how you can do that based on something we did there in the studio. I'm gonna show you a quick video right about now. So now I'm gonna shift and shoot aerially. So I'll kind of shift my props a tiny bit. Just to balance it out. Jay, can I have you come in a little bit in more? (camera clicking) Cool. Now. All right, one thing to take into consideration is I could have pulled the map out and folded it out, and so have the map, the background be the entirety of the map. But I like this layered appeal. Visually, when you create layers in a photo, it has the ability to stop somebody in their scroll quicker, 'cause they want to quickly understand it. Creating photographs like that on social is like, my top priority. Creating layers, creating visual composition that's intriguing and having somebody slow their scroll. (camera clicking) (giggles) (camera clicking) So when it comes to styling, there's this temptation to think that styled photos have to be really complex, really expensive and highly detailed. The answer is those are good in some respects, but a very simple photo proves that less is more. In this particular case, Caitlyn brought some macaroons. She believes that her dream customer would slow her scroll to see something that is executed and styled really well, so I am going to be shooting macaroons. Now people could sit here and say, "What is this styling? "What does macaroons have to do "with her Amazon resale marketing business?" Well, the thing you want to do on social media is to really identify that you want to put out things that you think your dream customer would be attracted to. No, she is not making macaroons, she is not selling macaroons, but if she can find a way to tie macaroons back to her business, perhaps like, "I eat a macaroon whenever I want to celebrate." Or, "What's your guilty pleasure?" When we talk about creating guilty pleasures, everybody has them. And when you get conversations going on Instagram, or you get conversations going on Facebook, what you're doing is driving engagement. Once you get people to engage over simple things, like commonalities between doughnuts, macaroons, ice cream, reality television. Huh, they might be even more inclined to start talking when you start... Talking back to you when you start talking about your business. So a couple things to notice when it comes to simplicity. Is you want to make sure that you're paying attention to the details. What we have is a mint green plate and I could absolutely place it on a white board. Easy. But what happens when I come to shooting it, is I would have to lay the camera to the same parallel as the floor, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to get a tea cup, and I'm gonna turn it upside down to create a light bottom to the plate. I don't have to include that tea cup, I just have to know that it's there. So now what I am going to do, is she brought in four macaroons. I've selected the white one to go at the bottom, to create more visual break. If I were to put the green on the green, it blends in. So I do white, then I do green. And I add a pink. Now, she brought another macaroon. But I think less is more. So all we've done now, from my perspective one thing that I note, is that there is this dark piece on the macaroon that I don't want showing because the eye will go there. So all I have to do is simply rotate, place here, my hands are shaking, okay. Jay will bring in that, that light. I'm gonna shoot a horizontal, a vertical and from the lip of the plate and above. I really want this to pop. And I'm gonna play with it. As a photographer, with a beautiful L-series lens, I'm gonna shoot this at a 1.2. Let's have a little fun, let's experiment. Great. Okay, I am at F 1.2, ISO 250 and 320th of a second. I'm gonna shoot the cup, the plate and the macaroon. Now, I'm just gonna shoot horizontally, and now I'm gonna shoot horizontally just the plate and the macaroons. And now I'm just going to shoot the macaroons. Now one thing that I'm considering, is I'm shooting with a white background, so, what Caitlyn can use this for later, or even on social media, on her newsletter, on a lead acquisition page, on her website, is if I have a lot of white in the background, she could superimpose text on it in Canva, in Photoshop and use this as promotional marketing materials. Imagine an ad as somebody's scrolling through Facebook, to see a plate of macaroons which catches their eye and it says, "Do you want to add something sweet to your life? "Have you considered Amazon to sell your sources?" Like, so we have to think in giving your photographer collateral to create fun imagery on Facebook instead of just somebody saying, "Hire me." So a shot horizontal with the macaroons in the center. Now I'm gonna shoot horizontal with the macaroons in the rule of thirds. So that Caitlyn has options later in posts to add text. Now that I've shot horizontal, I am going to shoot, I really like what's going on here. I really like it. I'm just going to take this dang hat off. Trying to be cool, just need to stop. Okay, I'm gonna do a vertical now. And I want to make sure that I, to the best of my ability, I'm not shooting an angle. I want to shoot just kind of straight on. (camera clicking) Cool. Now what I'm gonna do is shoot at a slight angle. (camera clicking) I dig, I dig, I dig, I dig. Okay. So, a quick recap. Less is more. We got that dialed in and nailed down. And now all I can think of is how well it's gonna work with the maps in the background on her website. How it's gonna pair really well with her lifestyle imagery on Instagram next to some lifestyle photos of, like, maps. Now we have a sweet component. All we're trying to do is to build a likeability factor of Caitlyn as a personal brand. One thing I want to point out was Caitlyn, how much did you spend on the macaroons? Roughly? Probably like, five dollars max. Okay. Probably more like three. So she probably spent somewhere between three and five dollars, and what we just shot was something that anybody could shoot with an iPhone. Or with Samsung, an Android, okay. A little mobile device, you could shoot this. And sure, we had a white background, but at home I don't have a studio to shoot with. So I get a foam board, an Elmer's foam board from Target. And I think they're about $3.95. Two foam board in one set. And I just put tape on the back ends, and I create what we call in the photo world, a V flat. So you get two foam boards and you just, make 'em a V. And then I get a white poster board. I created my own in-house photo studio. I put the white board at the bottom, I put the V flat in the corner, and all I have is little pocket of light, I can bring out my phone, and I could shoot coffee, I could shoot music pics, I could shoot makeup, I could shoot the tools that I use for henna designs. I could shoot whatever I want in a beautiful pocket of light. Now this is gonna be the last, this is gonna be the last sneak peek of photo shoots footage that we're gonna show. And this is from Highway because people were asking yesterday, "Well, what about the other kids? "How did Jasmine work with four kids at once?" And so I want to make sure, yes. (audience laughing) I know, I was like, "I don't know if we want to, "really want to show this, guys." So that was a fun adventure and so just to give people on the inside of what the other bonus footage will look like and how we ended up getting those images, I wanted to include that here to give people a sneak peek of how that looks. We're gonna show that now. So it seems like the universe if testing me. I'm going from shooting two children to shooting four children. So just doubled it. We have Trisha and Erin. They have brought in a new sofa as part of their shoot. I'm going to be learning how to work with four children, product, with a white background and then coaching the kids all along as long as they'll work with me. Cheese. Oh, cheese. Oh, my God, you guys already ready for us? I love this. If we could put 'em on the front of a coke bottle. A coke bottle, really? Yep. I mean you guys are so cute, we might. We might be able to do it. Can you guys do us a favor? Could you guys all try cheese! Yeah. How 'bout, how 'bout... Okay, how 'bout a big, yeah, you guys squeeze together in, like a big... A big family squeeze. Yeah. (children talking) (Jasmine laughing) Okay, guys. On the count of three, can you guys open that box for us in front of you? Yeah, come. Okay, say it again, stay sitting like you are. Yay. Screaming. Sit down. She takes them, so that's hers. Yup, that's good. Nice! You gotta look at 'em, make sure you got the right ones. I got the right one. What do they say? Right one! I can show you. (Jasmine laughing) Can you guys turn 'em towards us? Oh, good. Oh, nice. Mine's in my name. Now look at my name and say, that is not real. What does it say? It's cozy. What is your name? Esther. Oh, that's what it says. Ah, this is cozy. This says Esther in curly language. I'm leaving this on my bed. Tam, Tam, Tammy. Oh, you like that, is that... I'm homeschooled so I can just sit at my desk Oh, he can sit at his desk in... He can, I love it. Ah, Erin, can I have you back up, babe, can I have you back up? So you're homeschooled, too? So is Jasmine. (laughing) Nice, their hands full... use it... Right now, I'm trying to capture the kids snuggling in their most natural habitat, which I'm sure habitat is not the right word. Oh. But, huge. I want to make sure that I'm getting them and their exact reaction 'cause exact reactions are the things that show really well on social. I'm getting less... look it... look at me first. Esther, can you stand up, sweetie? Stand up and show me this beautiful, beautiful, yeah! Way to go. Esther can you bring up one hand? Just outside the... yes. And I'm about to high five you, hang on, hang on. About to high five you. I'm about to high five you, I'm coming in, I'm coming in, I'm coming in, I'm coming in, I'm coming in, I'm coming in. Yes! Okay. Cute, guys. Can I, Esther, can you be extra, extra careful and could you sit right back here on this? I'm gonna, all right, can you sit your bum right here? Could you sit right there? Yeah, okay, careful, careful. Do you feel safe? Mmm hmm. Okay. Yes, me, too. Yeah, it is. Can you bring up that, can you bring up the blanket the way that you had it up here? Like nice and cozy? Nice and cozy. Yeah, I love that, it's fantastic. Yes, come up here, look at, sit up, sit up. Sit up, Avery, you gotta sit up. Not snuggle in mom's bed. There you go, there you go. That's great. Oh, wow. That's my chill man. Hey, Joel, you look so cool. I just, you're just, you're the cool brother, I can tell already. Hey, bud, can you sit right here on the floor? Who saw the list? Me. No? Can you, can you stand up right here in front of the couch? And you're saying, "oh yeah." And you're the only girl. You what? I'm the only girl that... All those brothers? (laughing) You got all those brothers, what in the world? And they're older than him. (Jasmine laughing) And I'm older... So, there's a lot more of that amazingness. (laughing) I was like, "Hey, guys, "how do we keep that edit to a minimum?" Ah, that's the first time that I'm working with dogs and with children and product and wanting to shoot behind the scenes for our business owners. We need to show what we do. So I was thinking about three different things, and we also had these beautiful, amazing families come and volunteer their time on behalf of this class. Both of them, both families are members of Social Curator and that's what happens when you have a community. They will drive hours to come in and so I was not just thinking about the content for Creative Live, I was not just thinking about the content for Highway 3, I was also thinking about the content that I would be able to give these families in exchange for their time. So, this is what it takes to make our own social collateral. I want there to be no misnomers, that I am out here saying, "It's so easy, guys. "Easy peasy, go ahead and do it." What I am saying is that it's worth it. And we know that it takes a lot of time to create the content. Now I know that it's gonna be tempting because what we want to say is, "Well, can't I just do more "of what I want to do? "Can't I just coach more clients and sell essential oils, "and sell my products and bake more cookies?" Like, "I got into my business "just to do what I love, Jasmine." And to that I say, "I'm sorry that's not feasible." And it's not feasible because you came into this room not saying, "Jasmine, I want to be a hobbyist." You came into this room saying, "Jasmine, I want to be an entrepreneur. "Jasmine, I am an entrepreneur." So if you are different and if you are an entrepreneur, then you have to run a business. We started this bootcamp by saying it is not enough to own a business, you must run a business. And when you run a business, you must build your business. And when you build your business, you must foster your business. And when you foster your business, you then have to get people to talk about your business. And that takes time. So, what I am proposing to you is to be very thoughtful about who you are speaking to. So very thoughtful about the time it takes to curate your images. To be very thoughtful about being an image curator. To be very thoughtful about hiring a photographer or collaborating. To be very thoughtful about the captions that you write. To be very thoughtful about how you plan. And to be very thoughtful about how you insert your business inside of outside social conversations. And my friends, this all happens when we use hashtags.