As photographers, how can we stay relevant and post often yet still be present in living our life? In today’s episode, I’m breaking down the three main buckets of my content strategy, and how you can easily create content in your daily life. Let’s dive in to some tips and tricks to manage your content creation and stay on top of our social media presence. 

On Quianna Marie Weekly, we’re chatting about business growing pains, finding genuine connections, and celebrating wins of all sizes through the lens of a photographer at heart. Sprinkled throughout stories and interviews with past clients, photographers and other business owners this podcast is designed to help you step into your purpose and to truly create a life you’re proud of, a life worth photographing and sharing.

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Review the Show Notes: 

The Three Buckets Of My Content Strategy (4:53)

Working (5:20)

Living (7:16)

Planning (12:15)

Social Media Safety (13:47)

Tying It All Together (18:34)

How A Non-Viral Video Generated $10,000 In One Month (20:12)

Mentioned In This Episode:

The Green House

Review the Transcript:

content is hard. coming up with ideas is exhausting. And when we scroll through for inspiration, it’s a trap. We plan to look for content research, and then all of a sudden, it’s been 45 minutes on Tik Tok, sending videos to our besties and our brother all day long. So how can we be relevant by posting often, but still living our life and juggling it all, I must address the fat pink elephant in the room before we begin. I don’t have children. I’m not married yet. And photography and creating content is literally my only job.

No shade. But this may feel like one of those situations when a 19 year old is giving you advice about wellness and weight loss. I completely understand that getting advice from me on this topic may feel like I don’t have any experience with everything on your plate. And it’s true. We’re all living the same but very different lives and schedules. Even with our differences.

I know this, we both have a passion for our business. We love serving our clients with full hearts, we strive to make an impact in this world. And at the end of the day, we want to spend time with our family, our pets, and have a cushy nest egg to buy or whatever we want to be generous with our friends and family. I may not know you personally, babe, but I bet we can all mostly relate to that. Let’s dive in to some tricks and tips to help you manage your content creation.

While you’re already living your life. We went into business to make a difference and to turn our passions into profits not to feel like we’re losing our minds are falling behind on social media. Stick around for the last tip to learn how one real got about 150 views. But it helped bring in over $10,000 in revenue for my business for just one month. And in case you’re new here, I’m all about being scrappy or working with what you have and helping others is not about going viral on the internet.

It’s about becoming a local favorite. Welcome to Kiana Marie weekly, a podcast for creatives who love to celebrate wins, big or small by dancing in the kitchen photographers who are excited to serve their clients and friends who are ready to chase really, really big dreams. You can find all of the resources mentioned in this episode at QuiannaMarie.com/podcast.

Join me as I share weekly motivation, chat about growing pains, finding genuine connections and celebrating your wins through the lens of a photographer at heart. Come join me for a dance party ready loves though?

How are we creating content and being intentional with our business without losing ourselves are having our phones glued to our hands all day, your babies even for babies are watching. I know baby, you don’t want to spend an extra 20 minutes making a smoothie to record multiple angles of you pouring it into a mason jar like I get it. Or maybe your home is full of love. But lacking the aesthetics you’ve dreamed up the struggle bus is real. And I’m thrilled to help you feel like you have a full tank of gas on an open highway with plans to have no plans. Buckle up buttercup.

This pep talk is going to help you romanticize your life and help you crush your content. I’m gonna break down this episode into three categories to help me keep on track and to help you not feel so lost and confused and all over the place. If you’ve met me in person, you know I talk in circles and I literally share many commercial breaks in our chats. I just like to clarify things and to make sure that you understand the full context. As always, I need to remind you that I’m a professional photographer, dog mom, kitchen dancer, and a big, big dreamer. I am absolutely not a social media manager.

I just love doing it. And I refuse to let it take over my life. So I’m here to help. I watch a tick tock once from social the social media guy and I wish I remember his name to credit him. Once I find him I’m gonna definitely like reach back and tag him in this. But he challenged us to imagine that we were going to make $5 million in annual revenue in our business and five years. And then he said, record everything you would do to create that kind of income or create that impact if that’s what’s driving you. His content challenge was to record videos or take pictures of every single gym session.

Every meeting all the books, you’ll read podcast episodes, you’ll listen to every vacation just grinding away your laptop. It’s like he wanted us to pretend that we were on an MTV show or Netflix special to see how we did it. That always stuck with me. Now of course our mission is not to just record our life and post it like a real housewives show. It’s best to be intentional. So how do we capture our daily content without being bogged down by actually recording and making time to create that content? My entire content strategy is broken down into these three buckets.

I have a working category living and planning, then we’ll wrap up the secret formula to help tie them in all together. I’m going to dive deeper into these categories and share examples. So you can start recording and creating content today, starting with the easiest and wrapping up with some concepts and ideas that although they’re really easy, they do take some time and prep to plan for.

CONTENT STRATEGY: WORKING

All right, let’s start with working. I’m starting with the easiest one to boost your confidence and remind you that you’re a professional. And you’re literally the best. No, you really are. And I’m so proud of you. We just need more people to scroll to find you. I want you to think of this working category.

As simple as recording yourself work behind the scenes of the work in your next wedding location, scouting to find wildflowers consultations with future clients packing your gear, editing images, sharing videos of you creating albums, it’s so simple to simply grab a tripod and catch three to five second videos of you just doing your thing. When you share content like this, you’re reminding your dream clients that you’re still in business. Educating your current clients that will ultimately help with future referrals, supporting local vendors and promoting other businesses. It’s the easiest way to share your value, prove your “legitness” and show that you’re an expert while you’re already doing the work. Think of this content bucket as a way to simply record content while you’re just sharing your business.

I love this category because there’s typically no extra effort when it comes to ideas or content creating. You’re just capturing yourself doing the work like literally, these wedding days. And these events and all the stuff that you’re doing for your work is right in front of your face. Think of your frequently asked questions to answer and then answer them with your business content.

Let’s say your bride has a question about the timeline. I totally challenge you to create a quick text answer over of a video of a ceremony space. Boom, you just answered her question and still offered a ton of value for other photographers and future couples planning their wedding. Which each of these categories Think of them like filling your content bank, you don’t always use these videos right away, but you have them to play with and post later. Let’s roll right into the next category that I I love creating. Okay, I just love creating all of these.

They’re all my favorite.

CONTENT STRATEGY: LIVING

But the next one is living. You know those trending reels and tech talks floating around right now about how someone wishes that they could see a 32nd reel about their life, then everyone has been sharing the goofy real life moments.

This is the type of content to create for this category. Where do you live? being super vague? Of course. But do you live on a farm? Do you live in an apartment in the city? Do you live with your dog or your family? Our clients, past and future clients can’t always relate to our business. And even when our past brides may be getting burned out on our wedding content, but I’m sure they would love to see what’s your new favorite recipe.

Any tricks you have to get your toddler to eat more veggies, travel hacks for visiting national parks or simply just living life and reminding them that you’re a real human with a really big heart. In case you haven’t noticed people love watching people doing things.

Why do I have an obsession with moms putting their soaps in cute little jars or restocking the fridge? It’s crazy. I know. But I even level watching others simply living their lives. This is where it gets tough though, I can say it’s easy to just prop up your phone or set up your tripod to capture some video. But I know it’s not always that easy. Maybe your husband is not a fan of being on video.

So you have to try to keep him out of sight while you’re trying to do a time lapse or something in the house. Or maybe your kids are running around and they’re knocking over your tripod or picking up a sippy cup that your phone was balancing on. And it just gets jumbled, right and like maybe your brain is filled with so much that after a whirlwind of a day, you crash on your pillow and think what the heck did I even do? I get it.

To help you feel like you have a plan when it comes to creating this more personal content and more of your adventures. I challenge you to come up with a life list. Okay, so take some time to think about an average week of your daily life and write out about 10 to 15 things that you do. Do you cook breakfast every morning?

Do you go on walks with your dogs? Have you started drinking mushroom coffee? I don’t know like, how many photoshoots do you have this week? What events do you typically go to? Are you a part of any networking groups? Do you have any fun events that you’re attending workshops conferences? Do you love grabbing coffee with a friend happy hour with the girls? Brushing your teeth with your toddler before bed? Like what are some of the things that you can look at an entire week of your business and of your life? And what are some of the highlights?

Obviously we all know that we’re busy and time flies during the day. But what are some of the most moments that make you you. Personally, I love road trips and visiting national parks. I actually enjoy Costco dates and meal property with my boyfriend Mike, I love dreaming of building my dream barndominium farmhouse one day, and of course, audiobooks and podcasts. I love wearing my cowboy boots and dancing everywhere. Country music really is the soundtrack of my life. What does your movie look like? When you start pulling these moments out of your day, you’ll see that they’re relatable, but still unique to you.

This is the kind of content sprinkled between your professional work that helps others fall in love with you. If you’re still feeling overwhelmed, I challenge you to commit to a content week, pick a week during this month to try to record as much content and behind the scenes as possible.

Literally Think of yourself and pretend that you’re auditioning for your own documentary on the Magnolia network with Chip and Joanna Gaines. Take an entire week, Monday through Sunday to whip out your phone and have some fun recording your life. The mundane the boring, the fun, the adventures, the silly moments, the work the play, literally record it all day. This will help you record an entire bank to access and share later. From this bank you can share reels of your adventures, monthly recaps, fun facts and add trending audio to your quotes and educational content.

Okay, if you’re feeling like that is way too crazy. And maybe just I suggest you just maybe do like a content chunk for the week, commit to recording one entire day as much as possible. So literally just think of your day being recorded like a movie. Or if you’re feeling a little more like Okay, I can’t really commit to a week, but I can do a couple days, then I challenge you to do about two to three days. And just record it all. This way.

If you’re anything like me, you’re feeling so distracted and pulled in seven different directions, you at least have a plan, then on the weeks or the days that are content creation free, you can streamline your work and feel super accomplished. Without that guilt or that kind of like feeling like that lacking feeling like I didn’t make any content this week. Like don’t even worry about it right. So you’re just creating this bank of content.

CONTENT STRATEGY: PLANNING

Now let’s chat about the next category planning. This the type of content that does take some research. But the best part is is that if you already started recording your work days, photoshoots events and daily life and makes this type of content a breeze. This is where trends come in and you find voiceovers transitions, inspirational posts, to emulate or recreate. I love following creators like @pinksparrowsocial Jasmine star, Gera Bean, and Brock Johnson for tons of ideas.

They not only share silly ideas and trends, but they are so great at sharing tutorials on how to actually do them, like how to rock those transitions, how to utilize the different features and fun filters or different ways that you can be creative, like they are great resources for you to just consume and learn. Literally, if you have any time at all, check out pink Sparrow, social, she’s adorable. And her reels are just gold.

I think she has a course on it too. But my point is like go out there and study them. Think of social media as a time to to look and listen and learn instead of just scrolling for eye candy. Like we do need time to just like, look at cute dog videos. And, you know, laugh with our friends and stuff when they share. Like or when a girlfriend sends silly videos. Like it’s fun, right? But I highly encourage you to put that like business brain on where you can laugh and truly enjoy that eye candy. But you’re learning right? Now, before I wrap up and share the golden ticket to tie them all together. The big sister in me wants to share some things about safety.

CONTENT STRATEGY: SAFETY

So I share a lot about my life. And I literally am encouraging you to hit record on all of your adventures and a lot of your home life and your work right. I want you to be very, very intentional about what you’re actually putting online. I know there’s so much scary stuff going on right now. And we just need to be extra cautious, not only for ourselves, for our families, but also for our clients.

Okay, so a couple of like key safety tips that I have is be very, very intentional about where you’re actually recording in your home. So I hope that I don’t have to remind you even though I’m going to say it, like do not share the front of your house like do not share the front of your building of your home of your farm.

Like nobody should be able to look at a video that you’ve put out online and be like, Oh, I know what that is based on that street based on that right like that tree or that mountain right? Like we don’t want creepers million where we live and this also goes for inside Your home. So for example, like we all love natural window light, right. But do not film yourself in a position where you can actually see the mountain range or a specific tree, like outside of your window. And I know like this is being like really crazy, but I’m just doing this to protect you and your family. Same thing goes for children.

So it’s up to you. Of course, I feel like there’s, I hate to call it a trend, I don’t want to call it a trend. But I feel like a lot of families are being more aware of putting their children on blast, right, like putting them online. But a couple things that I am super hyper aware of, like, so for example, I post a lot about my little niece, okay, she’s my little cousin. And we always do our little like walks, right?

We go on nature walks, I spend a lot of time with her painting. And she often will wear like some of her old school T shirts that will say her school name on them like right across her chest, I am so careful to never post her online, like I will post it, but I will always put like a text box over it. So people don’t see that I do not want anybody knowing or my little niece goes to school, right? I know that sounds like I’m being way over protective. But I just have to get this out here.

Like I’m literally telling you to put your life online, but I want you to be careful. A couple other things too. Like I’ve mentioned this so many times on the podcast before, like when you are at an event and you are recording things, whether it be a wedding day, or just like a timely thing where you’re there, you know, actually working, don’t share that stuff live. Like I’m not even telling you like, be careful.

Do what you want. Like don’t do it. Okay, like, just wait until you get home or at least a couple hours after that event. So that that’s just not an issue. And I say this not to scare you because I don’t think people are going to like actually come and physically hurt you. But just be mindful that you do have a lot of expensive gear with you. Okay. And you’re obviously not home.

Sometimes people will be able to see oh, you’re traveling. Oh, like, Oh, I see that you’re not home right now. Right, like so, I hate to say these things, I hope they’re like dumb moments for you. But just a friendly reminder, like you are putting yourself online. Okay. And so I just want you to be safe, I want your clients to be safe as well. Okay, so that was just my little soapbox, I had to share that, like I said in my big sister moment to make sure you’re being safe. And then I want to wrap up with two things.

CONTENT STRATEGY: BLENDING THESE CONTENT IDEAS

One, how we tie these all together, and how they can be like the golden ticket to share these different types of categories. But then like blend them together in one post. And then I also want to share how one video did not go viral. It literally had like 200 views or something. And it was able to generate over $10,000 in my business. And I want to encourage you to remind you that like this type of content that I’m sharing with you is not meant to go viral. Like I literally don’t even have a lot of viral posts and videos throughout my like career like throughout all of my social media postings.

And I am on all the time. But you know what, I have a lot of local business like my calendar is full. I’m grateful for all the opportunities that I have. And so just wanna remind you like this is the type of information and the type of stuff that has worked for me. It did not get me to go viral like all the time, right? Circling back to how do we tie them together, I challenge you to be more intentional with your content and ask how you can blend these categories together.

For example, I love sharing the fact that when I am off the grid, traveling and exploring on road trips, I’m completely offline. Maybe I’ll share a pose with my phone grabbing the beautiful landscape in front of me, like as we’re driving down the highway, and in front of me, I see. It’s just like gorgeous landscapes. I can mention how grateful I am to have a photo editor to free up some of my time. I could post about meal prepping and drinking more water that week, because I’m so excited about my next wedding that’s coming up this Saturday.

Maybe I share a clip of my puppy faith and I walking, but I don’t just share a post of her and her cute little puppy face. I’m actually sharing a little video of us walking. And then I’m tagging the podcast that I’m listening to. Right. I just got back from Austin, Texas for a live podcasting event with Felicia Romero and Jen Kennedy. And it was just such an incredible experience. I have to share more about that.

But that would be a great way to be like hey, like this is a podcast. I’m listening to drop their names, create that like shareable content that those creators would love to share as well.

Okay, and do you see how I’m sharing my life and business? I’m blending them like watercolors while still adding flavor of my real life. You can do it too, babe, I promise it’s not hard. It just takes some time and some practice, the more we play with content creation, I promise, the easier it gets. Now, I want to wrap up with this quick little video I had done and it was for content shooters, right, like branding photography. So if you’re still pretty new here, I have been a wedding photographer for the last 15 years. And I am slowly pivoting, transitioning and growing into more branded and content photos.

Now, I’m still booking weddings actively, currently, that may be changing in the next year or so. But I am focusing more on content creation. And so I posted a post about crush your content. And like I said before, I think I got like 150 to 200 views on it. Like it really wasn’t anything. But because of that I booked over fifth teen and many content shoots with that. And this is before I was doing lucky 13.

That’s how I generated over $10,000 in my business in just one month. It wasn’t like over the course of a couple of months. It wasn’t in a year, I posted that video. And that summer, I made that much money. This is just a reminder that this is intentional content, because it’s about you, and how you are helping your clients. How you’re loving on them how you’re proving your worth, and proving your value and their your value. Sorry. And I think that’s something to dimension, I can go on my soapbox again. There’s a lot of chatter going on about how you don’t need to prove your value like you set your prices you’re in charge of that.

But value I think I mentioned before the podcast like is so subjective. So you need to prove it babe, like who are you? Why are you worth those super expensive prices? Why are you capable? Like you know, like, Who are you you need to show up and share that. I want to see it your dream clients need to find it. And it’s all about taking the time to shine online. All right, my love.

That was a little bit of a rant of an episode, but I am just so grateful that you’re here. If you picked up any golden nuggets, it would mean the world to me if you can please share a review. Wherever you’re listening today, please screenshot it, share it, I love to support you and of course share it as well. Anytime that you share anything about podcasts, whether you are sending one to a friend or posting about it. It truly helps this podcast get shared. And I’m just forever grateful for you. So keep on dancing, baby.

I hope you have a great week. Okay, love you. Bye.

That’s a wrap on another episode of Quianna Marie Weekly! Thank you so much for your listenership and support. You can find the resources and show notes for this episode and more at quiannamarie.com/podcast. I’d be honored if you’d show your support by leaving a review and rating on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, keep on dancing.