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Photography
March 2022
How to Use Photography to Build a Better Brand
Starting as a lifestyle photographer, I quickly learnt that how you use photography impacts your business and its success. Today, I still see brands not considering their imagery and publishing low-quality content, resulting in not seeing half as much growth despite their quality products.
With the digital world valuing visual content and with brand competition getting fiercer, your business should consider how photography plays a role in how you appeal to your market.
Below are my top reasons for How to Use Photography to Build a Better Brand.
Professionalism & social proof
Possibly the most known benefit of utilising compelling content, however, is often forgotten about or not thought of as much as it should be.
The better quality images you share, the more professional your brand will look and elevate you above your competitors.
Not only does your brand look appealing online, but it'll subconsciously tell your customers that the services/products you offer are just as high-quality.
The big takeaway from this point and again, it might seem obvious, but consider what you're uploading, whether that's on your website or social media. Always aim for quality and ensure it's leaving the right lasting impression on your potential customers.
Tell your story
Photography and video are one of the best mediums for your brand to tell a story. Use it to collectively show who you are, what you stand for and why you're worth following & buying from.
You can use quality imagery to show your audience what you're up to and what you're doing for clients in a great looking and easy to digest way. By posting something that looks great, whether that be an aesthetic office shot, portrait of you working or a landscape photograph, the result is the same - instantly drawing your customers into your store and giving them a reason to engage and buy.
Additionally, you can use images to lead into other content, for example, a blog! Starting a blog with an engaging image will likely encourage people to click and act on what you're promoting.
Great content should outline who you are and elevate you in the market. Modern business is about personality and people, not corporates anymore. People buy from people, authenticity & photography are perfect for showing both!
Take away: think of the narrative and story you want your audience to see and strategise how you can use imagery to fulfil that!
Attracting your perfect audience
When I talk about images, I don't always mean that perfect sunset or portrait. Sometimes, it can be something more "rough around the edges" or graphical. The beauty of photography is that what's "good-quality" is often subjective and you should always create & publish with the idea of attracting your perfect audience.
Consider who your ideal customers are and what they might be searching for. Once you know the answer, do everything in your power to tailor your imagery and content with the intent of attracting that perfect audience.
Are you a company that specialises in a specific craft? Publish professional photos of your products, as well as behind the scenes of your team to begin to establish a community.
Are you a motivational brand? Publish aspirational images of yourself, as well as motivational content that aligns with helping people.
Are you a nutritionist? Publish recipes, photos of beautiful food and more.
The list goes on, but you get the point. Publish content and imagery that is high quality to the audience you are trying to attract.
Enjoying what you're reading?
See our workInspiration sells
Sharing great content should not only sell your product or service, but also the lifestyle that comes with it.
The nuances on how you can do this for your brand are sometimes obvious and then other times they're not.
Either way, it's important to distinguish the lifestyle and outcomes of your product & convey these in your images.
Again, for example, if you're a photographer the outcomes of a client using you could be:- Great quality images that are better than they could do themselves.- Client will be able to sell more and attract more people as a result of using your images to advertise.
So, tailoring your content and somehow showing this off is super important. The way I've done it is to publish great imagery to show off the quality a client will be getting and then, shout about the results my clients are getting alongside my photography to create social proof of my services. Here, imagery and copywriting go hand-in-hand.
Let's take another example of a nutrition specialist. Their clients will want outcomes like - Great tasting, filling food that is still healthy.- To lose weight and feel better about themselves.
Here, as a business, you could look to create content that shows off both of these amazing lifestyle changes. As a nutrition coach, you could look to share quality images of beautiful, healthy food as well as your clients or similar enjoying the benefits of lost weight and the self-esteem boost.
A customer seeing their inspiration is both engaging, and interesting as well as strengthening your brand.
Authenticity
Above all, be authentic, as people can see through inauthenticity and being the opposite is favourable in so many more ways!
Driving value, helping people and generally trying to improve people's lives through one means or another will go further than quality, so share engaging content whilst keeping your brand authentic.
A couple of tips for authenticity: Always strive to encourage people with every piece of content. We encourage brands to have professional photography taken of their products and services, but stock imagery can be useful when used occassionally. Try to identify the best quality images and stay away from those that appear too staged, but create content where possible that portrays you and your brand's personality.
In conclusion...
I hope you enjoyed this article and found some of it thought-provoking when it comes to investing more time into the content you share.
If you'd like to learn more about our photography services, you can reach out to us here. Our in-house photographers have worked with brands worldwide on content creation and would love to show your business the way it deserves.