Does creating content for social media feel like a full time job? In today’s episode, I’m sharing some of my top hacks for making content creation feel effortless. These mindset shifts and action steps will make creating content more fun, plus make you more memorable to your audience. 

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. To truly create a life you’re proud of, a life worth photographing and sharing.

Make sure you’ve hit that follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast player to get notified each week as we air new episodes!

Subscribe on Your Favorite Podcast Player

Apple Podcast App | Spotify | Amazon

Connect with Quianna

Instagram | Facebook | TikTok | Pinterest

Today’s episode is brought to you by The Green House, my resource garden for photographers! Let me help you AMPLIFY your heart online and in real life to turn bridesmaids into future brides through templates, workshops, and freebies!

Review The Show Notes: 

What Is Content Creation? (5:23)

Invitation Content (5:55)

The Bestie Content Challenge (11:02)

Episode Links:

Behind The Scenes In Your Daily Life Guide – Grab this FREE guide to start capturing the behind the scenes in your daily life today!

Review the Transcript:

Why does creating content feel like a full time job? If you’re a small business owner and entrepreneur, you know the hustle and frustration for trying to scale your business, outsource the parts of your business you hate, maintain your work schedule, plus find the balance for your family, health, and life outside of our dream job.

Then add content creation and social media on top of all of that. Who has the time, creativity, or enthusiasm to create content when we’re already feeling burned out? I’m sick and tired of the algorithm updates and hearing my business besties chat about what Instagram is liking these days, checking the ups and downs of engagement, and basically hearing the conversation about what today’s social media platform is telling us to do, what TikTok says to do, what Instagram says to do.

What to post, when to post, or how to boost engagement. It’s literally making me go crazy and I’m sure it’s making you feel a little frustrated too. So how do we stop this? How do we pause and breathe? How do we tap into our intuition, listen, and create magnetic content, no matter what the gurus are telling us.

In today’s episode, I’m going to lead us through some mindset shifts that will hopefully make content creation fun, easy, and super memorable. Over the years as a business owner myself, I’ve been really intentional about recording pieces of my photography business and real life adventures. This made content creation basically effortless because I was simply recording the work I was already doing.

Social Media Content

Now before we break into these action lists and key tips, you know your girl loves a good list to help your content skyrocket. I first want to break down the mindset shifts and maybe even release some blocks. Some of us may have about creating content and generating engaging, fun, entertaining and educational stuff that gets your dream clients begging to work with you.

I have a quick story for you. So this morning I got a text from a random Gmail account claiming that I have a US postal package delivered to this warehouse and it couldn’t be delivered due to an incomplete address information. They asked me to copy and paste the link, hello, red flag within that message to update my mailing address among other red flags within that text.

It just felt icky and super spammy. And I deleted it. For the record, the U. S. Postal Service, aka Little Post Office, Amazon, FedEx, anything like that, they will never send you a text with a random Gmail account. They just won’t. I’m sharing this story because it not only got me fired up because I was thinking about others that have fallen for this trap.

People like my grandparents that are often scammed and have money stolen from them because of these thieves. It’s mind boggling to think that it’s someone’s full time job to literally ruin someone’s day. They put effort into stealing time, money, and energy from the ones we love. And there’s even big business and deep, dark markets that hurt people physically, mentally, and emotionally.

I don’t ever really talk about this stuff publicly because I prefer to keep my slice of the internet really happy, inspiring, safe, and bright. So here’s my spin on this life lesson here. There are people out there stealing money, hurting people and doing horrible things. Yet, they somehow end up in my inbox or in my hand with a text message.

You, my friend, have so much goodness, light, and love to share with your business. You have a voice. You have offers, products, and the answers that your dream clients are praying for. You help people, you’re delivering the best client experiences that are lasting for generations. You make an impact and we need more people to know about you.

People are wanting to pay for you and to pay for what you know and the services and the products that you offer. If thieves have the audacity to continue their bad business, can you be brave for two minutes to post about your business? Can you show up online and share how you solve problems? How you help your clients reach their goals.

Share why you’re qualified and passionate to be the industry leader that you are. This is why I’m obsessed with photographs and behind the scenes clips. Let’s dive deeper into these mindset shifts to make you go from blah to hell yeah, when it comes to posting online and sharing what you have to offer.

Welcome to Quianna 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? Let’s go!!

Yes, social media is loud, but we only really need to whisper to our ideal clients online for them to find us and fall in love with us. Social media is forever changing. And even today, Tik TOK is on the brink of being banned in America again. So who knows where the intention is going to go next, but with these simple business practices, content creation can stand the test of time.

Business is business, babe. I’m going to roll out some easy tips and tricks to help you feel excited and motivated to create content on the go. I even have a guide for you to help you capture behind the scenes in your daily life. Make sure to grab that guide on the show notes. Okay. Let’s break down those walls of content and securities together and come up with a checklist to get your dream clients to sign up.

Content For Social Media

I’m just begging to work with you first. I want to find clarity and exactly what I’m referencing with content creation. When I mentioned these ideas, please feel free to take these prompts and capture photos, video, or even caption ideas. This can stir up a lot of ideas for captions and like the context or the text that you’re adding onto your stories or onto your social media.

Of course, as a professional photographer, I’m always leaning towards working with a professional to help capture these content and branding shoots, but realistically, you can start capturing these ideas today with your phone. Let’s get started with the first one. Invitation content. This is a formula I love to kickstart with new clients and help friends instantly give their social media a quick makeover.

The Invitation To Work With You Through Social Media

Remember those birthday invitations that we got in the third grade? Typically, it was a generic postcard looking card that legit looked like an empty canva template to hold in our hands and then our moms filled out the blanks with their own handwriting. You know what I’m talking about? On that invite, you would see who, what, when, and where.

Who?

If you’re just getting started with showing up more online, I suggest starting with these content ideas. Who, who are you? What’s your name? What’s your business name? And who do you help? Start there. Like literally, this is a perfect time to take out a notebook or maybe just make a mental note of this as you’re listening on your walk or I don’t know, doing the dishes or something.

Whatever you’re doing, start either taking some mental notes about this or plan to reference and take notes because these are going to be so simple. It’s simple. It’s stupid, but I promise they’re going to be really helpful. Okay. So the first one is who, who are you? What’s your name? Business name? Who do you help?

What?

What? What do you do? How do you help people? What transformations or results do you provide for your clients? So that is all about the what, like, what is this all about? Why are you a big deal? Right? Like, what is your business about? This is a perfect way to generate the type of content so people can understand exactly what it is that you’re selling.

When?

When? When do your clients know it’s time to call you? What offers do you have in your product suite so these strangers online know when is the best time to work with you? If you’re a photographer planning mini sessions this fall, when is the best time to book? If someone is recently engaged, how soon should they start booking their favorite vendors?

If your client is looking to upgrade their home for their growing family, when should they be ready financially to make that next investment, right? So when is a little bit more of educational content, but you get my point here, like people need to know when that green light is or what that starting line is and what that middle ground is, and introduce them to the finish line, right?

Where?

Where are you located? Do you share local landmarks so people know where to find you? Are you available to travel? Do you have a specific studio or salon you always work at? Are your bags packed, ready to hop on a plane? And I love sharing this caveat. I know I’ve mentioned this before in the podcast.

It does not make you more successful or more luxury because your bags are packed and you are ready to travel. I cannot tell you how many times I had to kind of. crash or like crack that mental block thinking, gosh, I’m not going to be taken seriously as a wedding photographer unless I’ve been to Mexico, Italy, Tulum, or all these really incredible destination locations.

No, there’s going to be seasons in your life when maybe you bring home a puppy and you know, for the next six months to a year, it’s going to be nearly impossible for you to be gone for four days. Or maybe your family is experiencing a really busy sports season. And you know that it’s just, it just makes more sense to only work at local wedding venues that are only maybe an hour away tops.

So you could only be gone from your family no more than 10 or 12 hours that day. Right. So I want you to think about that. Like sometimes I think we, we really. Put destination weddings or destination business on this huge pedestal, but it may not align with you and the season you’re in right now. So that’s my little like big sister caveat.

But back to the where, okay, um, will you be traveling somewhere soon and opening dates to book in another city? So this was huge for me back in my photography days when I would travel to photography conferences and workshops. I legit would get so savvy that I would make friends in these towns, or maybe I had family in these specific states and these areas that I was traveling to.

And I would open up either a mini, like a mini session date, or I would book a boudoir shoot, you know, plus or minus a day or two before or after that conference. And that would literally help pay for my travel. So you can be really savvy with that. But this is just kind of like an underground. Idea business hack, but when it comes to the content creation, the where, like people need to be aware of where you’re going to be.

Okay. If that makes sense. So getting really ahead of your calendar and being really intentional what’s coming up next. Easy, easy content ideas. With this invitation content, you’re literally inviting your dream clients to work with you. The reason why I love these four simple content concepts is that you can literally snap photos or behind the scenes clips of what you’re already doing in your business today, or maybe make a note to catch these moments throughout the week.

You’re Already Doing The Work, Share It

You’re all ready doing the work. We just need to get it online. So more people can find you. This may feel like a beginner’s content challenge to share more about your brand and business to get things rolling, but that’s the beauty of social media. You can literally rinse and repeat these steps to share insights for your business, even online.

After you’re established, when we continue to share the invitation method of who, what, when, and where we’re showing up consistently sharing transformations, introducing ourselves, our employees, our current clients, past clients, and celebrating our pivots. As we continue sharing ideas for creating authentic, engaging, and entertaining content.

Show Up To Real Life Events For Content Generation

One non negotiable for me these days is to have fun events to attend on my calendar. It’s so much easier. I’m not even kidding. I wish I could just Like hug you and give you just the biggest, like, uh, just feeling that this is so much easier when you have fun things on your calendar to do. Okay. It is so much easier to simply capture content and share where you up to instead of pulling content out of thin air.

My business besties Anette Oran and Felicia Romero have been hosting these really fun live podcast recordings, masterminds, and empowering women events that I love to attend. Capturing behind the scenes of these high vibe, good energy events make sharing content a breeze. I literally just capture what’s going on, tag my friends, and they often share and expand my network with each post or story.

Bestie Content Challenge For Social Media

It’s a win win for everyone. This is what I call the Bestie Content Challenge that I literally made up and do for myself every time I attend an event. The game plan for these events is to capture content as if my best friend wasn’t able to attend and I wanted to tell her all about it. And I mean every little detail.

You know that feeling when you get in the car after a mastermind or a life changing event and you just want to call your mom or your business bestie to fill her in on all the exciting news. You want to tell her what you wore, share the lavish location with her, tell her who was there, who you were fangirling over to meet, what you ate, and something maybe a little spicy that happened.

When I attend events, I try to capture quick photos and 5 second behind the scene video clips to share with a friend that couldn’t attend. Do you see what I mean by these short clips? I love these mindset shifts because it can be really overwhelming if I just told you to capture the event and hope for the best, right?

So like, that’s Where do you even begin with that? And we can quickly get flustered or be so in the moment that we forget to capture the details. Super relatable. But being intentional about capturing these mini content clips will help save you so much time from creating content and help explode your brand awareness.

I am all about keeping content creation easy and streamlined. With these two mindset shifts of producing content through graphics, photos, and video clips with the invitation method and live events, you are going to see your connections and opportunities skyrocket. I know from experience that my social media engagement isn’t always super high, but I am sparking tons of opportunities from real life events right here locally.

I believe with social media that it’s not always profitable to be popular. I invest my time and money to generate local business for my photography. And the crazy part is, is every single time that I go to these events, okay, so here’s kind of the breakdown that goes through my mind. I love meeting new people.

Okay. And sometimes, so even for myself currently as a brand and content photographer, when I show up to these live events with these like minded, powerful women, We’re sparking this conversation, right? So I told him I’m a photographer and they grabbed my hand and say, Oh my gosh, can I get a card? I need you.

Let’s connect. I have a friend that’s just starting her business. We need to connect you. Like there’s this, there’s this raw, uh, like instant connection, but then. All of the magic happens in the followup. To me, that’s where social media really comes in as like a, like, that’s my ticket to these connections that actually spark paying clients.

Making Connections In Real Life and Online

Right? So we make that connection, but then if I just go home and don’t post about it, if I don’t share about it, like they kind of fizzle away and then hopefully I see them at another upcoming event. Like, no, that’s not how I run my business. Like I like to be way more intentional and I actually follow up with these girls.

So for example. I attend one of these events, and then we meet, we connect, you know, we kind of vibe, and we decide that, yeah, like, hell yeah, we need to work together. This will be so fun. So then, through my series of capturing those behind the scenes clips, and I may not even be tagging them in the, like, in the thing, right?

So like, hopefully I’m following them, and hopefully I make that connection, um, to tag them. But here’s what happens. Even if I don’t, they typically always end up in my DMs and they say, Hey, so good to meet you. Like they’re either coming after me, like they, like I’ve opened up that invitation and then because I have had that invitation method of information, so they didn’t just meet me in real life and thought, Oh, this looks like a cool girl or I think she’ll get me and sure.

I’m sure she’s talented, but then when they go to my profile and they see the content that’s already there. Waiting for them to either answer their questions, literally within seconds, they can decide if I’m legit or not, right? Same for you and your business. Like, if we have that type of content already on our feeds, then it’s just a no brainer.

Then the DMs start, and then I send out a quick honey book contract, and it’s done. Like, the, the next part is just picking a date. Do you see what I’m talking about? I’m sorry. I, like, I’m like, I’m like flailing my hands over here. I’m getting all passionate about this because this is the power of social media combined with.

Putting yourself out there and making these connections in person. Once I have a full bank of content, I make sure my camera roll is backed up by my Google photos drive. And I can easily reference past photos and videos by searching for dates, locations, or even people’s faces. I know it’s kind of crazy, but it’s just the world we live in and it actually makes my life so much easier.

This comes in handy when I’m sharing monthly or annual recaps, sharing my adventures, or even the client experience to boost more recognition and sales. Don’t forget to grab my free guide, Behind the Scenes in Your Daily Life, to start generating easy and converting content today. You are powerful. My love, you are helping people and making an impact.

You Are Making An Impact

We need you to show up online so your dream clients can find you as a challenge this week. I challenge you to grab a screenshot of this episode or share a behind the scenes clips of what you’re actually doing while you’re listening to this episode. Maybe you’re walking your dog and maybe you’re editing, washing some dishes.

I don’t know what you’ve got going on, folding some clothes, but please grab a snap of that. Tag me at Quianna Marie, and I’ll be sure to share and celebrate your post. I appreciate you more than you can imagine, and look forward to chatting with you again next week. Can’t wait to connect again soon. K, 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. Slash 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.