How to use styled stock photography for your organizing business
When we talked with Emma Woodman about diy logo tips we also discussed the need to have solid professional organizer branding if you want to attract the higher-paying clients... Your brand lives on your website AND off your website so it's really important to make sure you are looking buttoned up and cohesive everywhere!
I know a lot of you are just now getting into Instagram for business purposes. Instagram can be super-intimidating because everyone else's feed is sooo gorgeous, and all the "best advice" out there says you should post on the platform at least once a day.
THE MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION IS, WHAT IN THE WORLD WILL YOU POST?
The reality is, my random day-in-the-life (iPhone) pics of being a professional organizer weren't all that glamorous :( The reality of what we do is kinda messy, and isn't happening in the best lighting. Also, I really found that my clients REALLY valued the fact that I wasn't wasting time trying to stage a cute photo.
Also extra-unfortunately, I am so picky about what I publish that I just decided I wouldn't put anything "amateur" out on the internet that had my name on it.
So I started sourcing stock photography that conveyed my sense of style and organization ideas. There are more and more sites that are focused on putting out real, non-cheesy photography and I'm super happy about that.
Here are a few ideas I have for you to take my styled pics and personalize them for your brand.
1. Let's start with the basics. You can get several smaller pics out of each stock photo by cropping down to different areas of focus!
2. Here is an example Instagram image that uses a black overlay at 25% opacity, along with fonts and colors that match YOUR brand. I highly suggest developing a certain "style" for your social media platforms -- the beauty of this is it makes it SO simple to swap out the background image and have your post ready.
3. This image didn't require any color changes. It just uses your logo in the "white space" of the stock photo, which gives your brand a clean, modern look.
4. Here's a Pinterest example image! See, one thing I think pro organizers could be doing to improve their branding is not thinking so literally when it comes to their visuals. We don't actually have to put a picture of that crazy-messy garage in our pin, you know? By the way, to create this, I did a yellow color overlay at 35% opacity. (Also did you notice I created a vertical image for Pinterest by simply rotating the stock photo?)
I hope these examples inspire you as you create your own branded content!
xo Jen
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