Watch This Episode of MwahTV About who should show their personal brand through photography
On this episode of Mwah TV, I’m sharing who I recommend should show their personal brand through photography. Whilst this is something, I’m passionate about creating photography for, I have found that it works really well for some businesses and not so well for others. Watch this episode to see where you fall in the mix to help you make the right call on personal branding for you.
In Part 3 this week I'm looking at who should show their personal brand through photography. You can watch the full episode right here.
Do You Need To Catch Up?
Part One
In Part One, I looked at how you can convey your personal branding through the right kind of photography.
Part Two
In Part Two I talked about WHY you should show your personal branding through photography.
Today I’m rounding things off nicely by looking at who this is important for. Who I recommend thinking about using Personal branding in photography and also who shouldn’t?
The Hot Yes's in Showing Personal Brand Through Photography?
Here is my 3 Hot Yes's when it comes to who should show their personal brand through photography.
Are You A Creative Or A Maker?
If you create or make in your business in any way, then I want you to think about embracing the joy that comes with personal branding photography.
The reason this works so well for us creatives is that buyers of your creativity are compelled to understand how your creative brain conceived the thing they want to buy. They admire it and they want to understand it more because it makes them feel something.
If you are a creative like me who felt a little bit like the odd one out in the classroom from time to time then it’s time to embrace your oddball status, it’s time for you to trade in on that.
Many creatives that I work with find explaining their own creativity hard to do – weird right? I think it’s because it just feels natural and instinctive to us.
Recognise This Feeling of Resistance?
There is a lot of resistance to sharing the process, many creatives feel a lot of imposter syndrome which I like to think comes as a result of being the oddball in the classroom. We fear that sharing the how will mean other people can just copy it and then we’ve shot ourselves in the entrepreneurial foot.
What you aren’t shining a light on is the WHY that goes on behind your how. That is where the gold dust really exists for you.
Looking at content that explains why you have a quirky process of sketching along to death metal even though you are a candle maker who makes candles that look and smell like tranquillity is the bit to shine the light on. People find this bit the most compelling and let’s face it if there really are two candle makers in the world who operate in this way I’m still willing to bet that you are both still very different in other ways.
Are You A Small Business That Just Experienced Rapid Growth?
There is a common theme within tech and innovative businesses going through a period of rapid growth. If you set out with a unique idea and now you have a team of 8 people helping you get to a forecasted team of 38 within the next 12 months then Personal Branding can be hugely significant in supporting your ambitious timeline of growth.
In last week’s episode, I mentioned the human predisposition to feel the compelling joy around the sense of a quest. The more that we can become emotionally tied to this quest the more it infects our everyday thinking and then guess what? We’re bringing it up as a powerful anecdote the next time we are at a cocktail party or social gathering.
If you are in this boat and you are really struggling with how this can be done in-house in an organic way then maybe we need to talk. You can DM me on Instagram about creatively directing self-content creation. Or, we can chat in a Cyber Cocktail together.
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To find out how it works and pick out your time, click here.
Do You Work In A "Boring" Or "Traditional" Industry?
I’m also here today to strongly recommend you think about personal branding strategies in your content creation if you class your business as "boring business".
By this, I mean if you work in the "traditional" professional services, manufacturing, or in an industry where the general consensus is “Personal Branding. That would be LUDICROUS for us even to attempt because of excuse a, excuse b or excuse C.”
If there is strong resistance to personal branding methods then the reason I wholeheartedly recommend thinking about it is that you will instantly be making noise in a disruptive way among your competition and in your wider market.
- Hello, Awards!
- Hi There, Buzz on Social Media!
- Hello, better Employee Calibre!
Do you see where I’m going? It always pays to zig on the zag. You can see me speaking about this in more detail on this here.
The BIG No's in Showing Personal Brand Through Photography?
Let's finish off then with 10 Really Quick and Really good reasons a Personal Brand is NOT A GOOD IDEA.
- If your plan is to scale up and then sell on. (putting yourself firmly at the helm may cause marketing issues after you sell on).
- If you know that you don’t always deliver great work. (you wanna work on improving quality first).
- If you know you don’t really care about treating people well. (I applaud your honesty, but tacking your approach onto your personal reputation will probably bite you on the ass further on in the future).
- If you really have misgivings about being your true self. (whether its fear, self-confidence or hiding something in your past. These can all be blocks that get in your way of personal branding success. Take the time to work on yourself about these things then you can come back to exploring personal branding later).
- If the online you and the real you are complete strangers. (are you posting an insta life and living the life of a normal flawed human being? Using Personal Branding is going to involve the challenge of bringing the two together for you).
There's More...
- If your whole career plan is to remain as an employee (large organisations are over-using this terminology because it is on-trend. In my opinion, they’ve replaced it with more realistic terminology like good character, professionalism, and internal organisation reputation).
- If you are at capacity and booked that way for the next year. (hugest congratulations to you! Long may it last. My big questions to you if you said this to me 121 would be 1: It’s time to put your prices up and 2: If it's working for you now, why do you want to mess with it?)
- If you have no money in your business and you are living on super noodles. (Get on the phone and do some selling then deliver it to the best of your ability. Branding can come later to grow your business after you get yourself out of survival mode).
- If you are not really sure where you want to be yet. (The best personal branding is PERSONAL if you are going thru an existential crisis or you feel lost and capitalising on your feelings about this would be damaging to what you do then take the time to work on yourself first).
- You are not 100% crystal clear on who your customer is. (If you cannot tell me in one clear sentence who you serve and why you serve them then this will be a big barrier in creating a strong visual concept for you in a personal branding photoshoot. If you can’t do this invest time and money on figuring this out and making sure it works in practice. THEN when you know it works and you like serving these people it is time for us to talk).
Timestamps for this Episode of #MwahTV
Going beyond Personal Brand Strategy
There are lots of types of branding strategies outside of Personal Branding. If you know this is a missing part of your business, thinking carefully about how you want to rectify this to support building your business is really important. This is a great episode to help you get on the right track.
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