Finding the right photographer for your brand photos can be overwhelming. It may seem like everyone and their sister is a photographer. Finding a photographer who understands what you need to help grow your business and connect with your audience can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack. We want to help make that process easier for you. Today, we’d like to share five common mistakes that people make when choosing a business/personal brand photographer. Our hope is that if you know what the mistakes are, you’ll be able to avoid them. We’ll also share our industry insider knowledge and reveal the top five tips that will help ensure that you hire the best photographer for your needs. I hope that you find the information helpful. Please feel free to pass these tips on to any friends who might find them helpful.
Mistake #1: Hiring a Traditional Photographer who doesn’t specialize in Business/Personal Brand Photography
While there are plenty of photographers who can take a beautiful photo or a nice headshot, very few traditional photographers understand how to transform your personal brand or business brand into images. They may expect you to have all the ideas, or they’ll come with generic, overdone ideas.
Traditional photographers, will not have the expertise you need to create images that truly connect with your audience, grow your social media following, or give you the authentic images you need for conversion. We do not work off of a generic shot list, we strategically transform your brand into a set of images that connect. At Lusona Photography we take the time to understand your brand and your audience to create a set of unique images that will truly reflect you and help people feel like they know and trust you. It’s far more than just a beautiful headshot. It’s hard to stand apart from the crowd online. If you’re going to invest the time and money in brand photography, picking a traditional photographer who doesn’t understand how to transform your brand into images is a huge mistake. If you want to use images to enhance your personal brand and grow your business online, you need to work with someone who specializes in Brand Photography.
Pro Tip #1: Look for variety when you look through a photographer’s portfolio, look to see if they have “go to” poses they do with everyone, or if they have a wide variety of images that vary from client to client.
Mistake #2: Not asking if a commercial use license is included.
Most traditional photographers do NOT allow you to use their images commercially. This means that you can’t use them for business purposes in any way. If you want to use images in your business, you MUST have a commercial use license. Since you’ll be using the images to grow your business and make money, you should expect to pay more for these images than you would for a personal use photo session. Traditionally, commercial use licenses vary in price based on distribution numbers, the location the photos are used, how many copies will be distributed, what channels will be used to distribute them, how long you’ll be allowed to use them, and so on. Quite frankly, it’s very complicated and difficult to track and deal with. This is why working with Lusona Photography is ideal. We include the commercial use license that you need in our price. No confusing tracking. No complicated pricing. One price gives you almost unlimited commercial use. This is important, because, for example, if a post goes viral, the last thing you want is to get a licensing bill from your photographer, or worse, have to pull it down because you didn’t have a commercial use license, or even get sued.
Pro Tip #2: Ask for details about their usage license and contract before making a decision. If a photographer doesn’t have a contract or usage license or if things get awkward when you ask about them, they likely won’t understand your mindset as a business owner. It’s important to have the proper tools to handle commercial work.
Mistake #3: Not getting the right to edit the images
This is a big one.
Traditionally, photographers do NOT give the right to edit their photos in any way. Consumers generally don’t need to edit photos from traditional photographers. They hire photographers because they like their work. It’s rare they’d do more than buy a few prints, an album, wall art or cards.
However, if you’re hiring a photographer because you need images to grow your business online, you’re likely going to need to edit or modify a few of them. Whether it’s adding text to the image, optimizing it for Pinterest, making it into a Facebook ad or something more drastic, you need rights to make any changes.
Pro Tip #3: Ask if you’re allowed to edit the photos.
You want unrestricted access to edit and customize the images however you or your graphic designer needs to.
Mistake #4: Hiring a photographer who requires you to give them credit
Traditional photographers usually allow you to use images online if you link to their website or credit them whenever you use the image. They may even require you to use a watermarked version of the image. If you have to link to their site on a sales page, on your Facebook ads or anywhere else, it will lower your conversion rate. Anytime you add links to outside sites on posts or pages you risk losing your traffic to those sites and miss the opportunity for people to take the action you want them to take. This is important to us here at Lusona Photography. We understand that it’s not always appropriate to give photo credit each time one of our photos is used. We do appreciate it when we are credited on posts or pages where it’s appropriate of course! But we never want giving credit to hurt your conversion rate or make your own content less effective. We are here to help grow your business/personal brand and make working with us as amazing as possible so that when you hear of someone who needs a brand photographer, you’ll be happy to recommend Lusona photo.
Pro Tip #4: Ask for specific details on how you’re required to credit the photographer.
Any photographer who requires you to credit them every time an image is used doesn’t understand basic conversion principles and the needs of an entrepreneur, influencer or business.
Authentic Images that
Connect and Convert
Mistake #5: Shooting without a plan
A good brand photographer will ask you a series of questions and your answers will ensure that you get all of the images you need to create content for a solid three months. Whether you need daily images for Instagram, images for blog posts, website banners, Pinterest images, Facebook Ad images, websites or something else. We will make sure you have everything you need and formatted correctly for each platform. Many traditional photographers shoot vertical portraits, which are hard to use for website banners and Facebook ads or close-ups that don’t leave the space you need to add text or other graphic elements to the image. Lusona Photo shoots with your needs in mind and provides you with images that are perfect for creating content. Our goal is to provide you with every image you will need for three months which will make your social media management and content creation more efficient. No more wasting ten minutes or longer taking a low-quality iPhone pictures or searching for stock photos. You will have the perfect image ready and waiting for you every day. You will be able to batch create your posts with ease and efficiency, saving you time and helping you get ahead, so that you can schedule posts in advance and not have that hanging over your head each day.
Pro Tip #5: Hire a photographer who offers a yearly package
If you are using social media to grow your brand, you’re going to need a steady stream of new images month after month.
While traditional photographers typically book one session at a time, we offer yearly packages that lock in your spot with us and guarantee that you’ll have fresh images every quarter. Plus you’ll get a better rate when you book a yearly package instead of individual sessions and it’s one less thing that you’ll have to worry about. And, you can pay monthly, which helps even out your cash flow throughout the year.
We have a limited number of yearly spots, so if you’re interested in working with us on an ongoing basis, we’d be happy to answer any questions you have, so don’t hesitate to get in touch. Either way, we hope that you found this email series helpful in your search for a brand photographer. Hope to hear from you soon!
