How To Prepare For Your Personal Branding Photoshoot - A Deep Dive Into Your Brand
Why it’s important to prepare
You did it! You invested in personal branding photos! I’m so proud of you for investing in yourself and in the growth of your business. This is a big investment, and I want to help you make the most of it!
The entire purpose of personal branding photos is to create something that is truly aligned with who you are as a person and as a business owner. These photos are meant to help you connect with the right people, your people, so that you can build meaningful connections with them and ultimately help solve some of the problems they encounter.
And of course, by helping them, they also help you live the life of your dreams and create more opportunities for you to help more people.
It’s a win-win-win situation for everyone involved.
In order to create these intentional, magical photos, you want to sit down and take some time to reflect. If you don’t know where to start, you’ve come to the right place!
Self-reflection and self-awareness are key to creating brand photos that pop and that align with YOU.
Different layers of preparation
There are several layers that you might want to reflect on in order to truly make the most of your investment and create the photos that will help you connect to and serve your audience.
The best way to stand out
Let’s dive in deep first. Because this is probably the most effective way to stand out.
The digital age has made information available with the click of a button. This makes it very difficult to create new information or have original ideas. Almost everything we know and think about has been said and done before.
Now while you might think this sounds a bit depressing, it’s not. Because this takes the pressure off! In order to be relevant and unique in the online space, we don’t need to be original. We simply have to be unique.
And what’s the best way to be unique? Being yourself.
I believe this to be the best way to stand out. And on top of that, you also get to embrace every facet of who you are, and that sounds incredibly liberating.
Brand elements
When it comes to incorporating the aspects of yourself that make you who you are into your personal brand, the best way to start is by thinking about brand elements.
Brand elements are parts of you that you incorporate into your brand, even if they have nothing to do with your actual niche. This is what makes you different and unique in your particular niche, and that’s what will speak to your people.
You can think about brand elements as tools in your skillset, interests, hobbies, habits, routines… Anything that is part of YOU and that you can use to connect with other people.
A brand element could be that you love luxury, and you like to drink champagne to celebrate your wins. Right away, this clarifies your personality, which will attract people who also like luxury. Start using that element in your branding.
Use the champagne emoji. Have bottle of Moët in the background of your stories, waiting to be opened to celebrate a win. And you guessed it, create some brand photos where you celebrate while having champagne. Maybe you create some with you’re sitting in a bathrobe in a beautiful hotel, looking at the Eiffel Tower and sipping your mimosa for brunch.
You could include your pet, your coffee addiction, your love for burnt orange sweaters, your crystals, your nail polish collection… Get creative here. Anything that you can think of that makes up a little piece of who you are, start intentionally placing it into your content (aka your brand photos).
These elements are points of connection and engagement with your audience, and it’ll help them identify you as someone they’d like to work with. With all the information already out there with the click of a button, it’s not about information anymore. It’s about energy. So go out there and show people who you are, because that’s how they will connect with you, and that’s how you’ll create meaningful connections and attract dream clients into your space.
Create a vision board for your ideal client
You need to know where your ideal clients are now and where they’d like to be. Ultimately, you’re not creating content for you, you’re creating content for them. So you need to know exactly what they think about and what their goals are.
You want to create content that is going to hook them in, because they want the same results, the same life, that you have. Your content should be aspirational.
The best way to figure out what content your audience would resonate with is to create a vision board of their goals and dream life. The good news is, when we create personal brands, we are often a version of our dream clients, who are simply a few steps ahead on our journey.
This means that their vision board will look very similar to yours.
So get yourself in the mindset of where your dream client is now, what their problems are, and then imaging how they would feel, look, dress when they reach their goals.
Once you’ve created this vision board, you’ll find it much easier to create content, because you’ll know exactly what your audience resonates with.
Use this vision board as a roadmap for your personal branding shoot.
Create photos that have a similar vibe and energy as the ones in your audience’s vision board.
These images will help position you as the expert in their minds, as the person who is already living the life they want, which makes them more likely to see you as a resource and a leader.
↑ A sneak peek into the vision board I created for my audience ↑
Incorporate brand colours
Now that you have a better idea of what your ideal clients dream about, it’s time to become that!
Use the vision board you created in the previous step to plan your locations, outfits, props and poses for your personal branding shoot.
Planning these things ahead ensures that your photos match your brand colours and the vibe that you want your audience to feel when they come to your page.
The easiest way to include your brand colours is by choosing outfits that are in those colours. Also make sure that your style matches the leader you are embodying. Is your dream self (and your audience’s dream self) wearing a classy pant suit or a chill baggy outfit?
Another thing you want to think about when it comes to colours is the time of day… This is something that your photographer can help you with. Depending when you shoot, the colours will look different and the vibe of your photos will be different as well.
If you shoot at sunrise, you’ll get soft pinks and oranges, whereas midday you’ll have harsher light and crisper colours. There’s no right or wrong here, it’s just a matter of what matches the vibe of yoru brand (again, refer back to your vision board, and ask your photographer what time of day would be best to recreate that vibe).
Shot list
You want to make sure that you get all the shots you had in your mind. The day of the shoot, things can get a little carried away. Which is great, it’s always good to be intuitive and creative in the moment. But if you want to be extra efficient, you’re gonna want to create a shot list.
Be as specific as possible. Write down all the poses that you want to do in each location, and include outfits as well. You can create multiple different sets of photos in one location by simply changing your outfit.
Again, you can use your vision board as inspiration. Notice what made you choose each photo you put in your vision board. Was it the outfit, the pose, the location? Make note of that so that you can plan your shot list accordingly.
Do you feel ready?
That was a lot of information to take in! Taking branding photos that represent who you are doesn’t have to be complicated. You do want to come prepared, but it’s also all about trusting your intuitive nudges.
Having a plan that encompasses the things in this post will ensure that you are as efficient as possible and create as much content as you can in one session. This means maybe 1-2 different locations and at least a few outfit changes to make the most out of each location.
You really want to think about your brand elements, because only you know what interests, hobbies and routines are part of you. And creating that vision board is so helpful to get to know your dream client better. This will help you with your branding but it goes beyond that. It’ll help you infuse everything you do with elements that speak to your audience.
When it comes to outfits, poses and location, that is something that your photographer can help you with if you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed.
If you want to see more tips and practical examples of this, come join my community on Instagram, where I share daily insights and tips that make personal branding simple and applicable.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hi there, I’m Dorothea!
I am a personal branding photographer and mentor for ambitious female entrepreneurs, who are ready to take their business and life to the next level.
My mission is to help my clients highlight their uniqueness so that they can stand out in the online space, and start attracting those dream clients.
My wish is to help my clients create a business that is aligned with their values, so they can do work they love and have the freedom to live the life they’ve always dreamed of.
