Watch this episode of MwahTV About Using Selfies To Build A Brand
Let’s talk about using selfies to build your brand.
How do you use selfies to build your brand? If you’re stuck in that debate around how important it is to spend some time levelling up your selfie game and making it part of your brand, then by the end of this episode, I want to make sure that you have a clear understanding of exactly where selfies sit in your overall brand strategy, how important are they and how you can start using them to grow your business and increase your success.
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Touchpoints
Touchpoints, let’s begin with a zoomed-out view of all of the different touchpoints you can have as a brand. You can see here all the different touchpoints that can exist in any brand, the size of each circle on this diagram, shows the usual amount of credence each touchpoint has to the perception of an overall brand.
Within Photography
Now let us zoom in specifically on photography. And this has been made up of all the different types of photography you can expect from any modern business. Stock photography, product or technical photography do have their place, but we can leave these for another time in a future episode.
Branding Photography
This other part of photography is dedicated to brand photography. So that’s photography that articulates the business in professional shaft images and it usually shows the people behind the business and how they show up like how the business delivers what they say they’re going to. And then you can see I’ve got selfies in here. This is an area that has increased in size and power or credence significantly as we’ve taken our businesses more online and have started to use social media as a way to drive traffic to our websites.
Common Misunderstandings About Selfies
Let’s go back to the diagrams (above). As you can see from looking at the zoomed-out diagram, it would be foolish to think that one type of photography can replace another when you’re thinking about the photography part of your branding. In my opinion, all of them have a valid place in most brands and this is because all of them do something slightly different for your brand communications.
Brand Photography
For me, brand photography is all about showing the pinnacle of the photographic image that articulates your brand. So it’s the most polished version of the business owners or team behind the business. It is well-thought-choreographed imagery that articulates why a business does what it does. That might be done with:
- Professional Lighting,
- Props,
- Locations,
- Outfits
- The list goes on.
Used in
Now you’re going to want to use your brand photography because it has this potency all over your website. And in key moments like:
- In advertising,
- In your presentations or
- Public appearances,
- In your public relations, especially in the press, as well as
- In your own publications like brochures, magazines, guides, and lead magnets.
Selfies Photography
Selfies or DIY phoneography is all about documenting the flawed, imperfect part of your day-to-day as a business.
Messy Desk & An All Nighter
I’m talking about nitty-gritty like your messy desk or what it looks like when you’ve pulled an all-nighter.
Biz Pals & On The Job
Hanging out with some best pals, on the job with a client.
Commuting & U.G.C
What it’s like when you do your commute. UGC or user-generated content, so that’s selfies or phoneography that have been taken by your end-users to document their engagement or their feeling of what it was like to work with your brand.
In Advertising
And sometimes in adverts, yes, as well in adverts, I’ve repeated myself, haven’t I?
There’s actually a lot of data that’s building up when it comes to social media and online advertising that selfies, so they’re slightly flawed or real day-to-day image works better, it has more engagement and therefore works as a more effective ad when you’re considering doing something online. And you can see here this face of me in my rollers ended up being the best-performing photograph in a recent set of Facebook ads I’ve done. We tested out the branding stuff. We looked at the more polished stuff.
But actually, me in my rollers was something that stopped people from scrolling.
Visualise ALL Of Your Business Photography Like This
I’ve got another diagram for you and this is something that I work into most of my talks that I deliver to different people all over the place. Let’s take a look at it. This is the selfie pyramid.
So this is an example to show you the frequency of selfies versus that pinnacle-polished brand photography. So here at the top, we’ve got a polished brand photograph of me, these are different brand photographs from 2017-2020. I still use them all today. And you can see there are next to no flaws, they’re beautifully lit, they’ve been retouched, and they’re polished.
Where Selfies Come In
Underneath are tonnes of different selfies that I took and then posted on social media as a business brand. You can see that these capture a specific time an occasion or a certain mood.
I’ve matched the accompanying caption for the social media posts to the image. This gives you a visual sense of how rough you can be when it comes to sharing your imperfect selfies whilst still upholding a polished and well-thought-out brand.
A lot of people feel trepidatious that sharing something that isn’t perfectly lit or edited, is going to ruin their brand or their good name in business. And that’s just not the truth. People are going to fall in love with you when they start to learn more about your flaws, and they’re going to understand you more and feel a kinship with you when they see that you’re just like them or that you have flaws as well.
