Unlocking the Power of Wedding and Branding Images to Boost Your Business

“Oh my gosh! I love these! Thank you for capturing my work at the wedding!” and “Thank you for my branding images!” often quickly turns to…”but now what do I do with these?” for business owners. Ever wondered how to use images to boost your business once you’ve received them from a photographer? I’ve got you!

I’ve built my business on the idea that these photos aren’t just mine. Of course they are the couple’s first, but with my client’s permission I share the photos from every wedding I photograph with the vendors and creatives who put their heart and soul into making the day a success. All you have to do is scroll through the wedding blog posts and you can quickly see that my business benefits from the hard work of vendors, businesses, and creatives through gorgeous things to photograph and amazing services rendered. My thank you is to return the favor with giving them access to the images for their use!

This has morphed into a love of helping all businesses with their imagery and learning how to use them to boost their business. Branding, stock images, and headshots are such a vital and powerful part of business!

I get feedback all the time though, that sometimes it’s hard to figure out just how to use the images. I’ve got a few tips to help you get the most out of photos of your work from photographers (whether that’s me or someone else).

1. Make them easy to access for yourself!

This is honestly the biggest tip I can give for using images to boost your business, honestly. When you need a photo for a social media post, or to put in an email, the chances that you’re going to take the time to search for the email with the link to the gallery, find a photo in the gallery, and then download it is slim. You’re going to reach for what’s quick and easy! If you want to use the gallery photos for your work, make sure you make it easy to get them.

First, go through the gallery and favorite the photos of your work (in the galleries I send you do this by clicking the heart icon on the photo). Be sure to look for great behind the scenes shots as well from the “Vendors and Behind the Scenes” folder!
Second, download those images! DON’T just screenshot them. Download, download, download! Future you will thank you for that.
Third, save them to a designated folder on your computer (i.e. “Images from Weddings” and then subfolders of each wedding).
Fourth, send your very favorites to your phone and put them in a folder in your photos app. I know, it sounds like a lot of work, but when you’re needing a great photo RIGHT NOW, these will be in your reach in seconds.

Don’t leave them languishing online or just buried in a random folder on your computer.

2. Use Them on Social Media

This is the one that everyone thinks of first! But sometimes figuring out how can be hard. We could write multiple blog posts on this alone, but here’s some quick ideas to get you going.

• Definitely do the “Look at this awesome thing I made!” posts! People love seeing the finished work and how it can look in a real wedding.
• If there aren’t zoomed in photos of the detail, crop in on the photo to showcase the little things that made a big impact, things that you loved, or things you agonized over. Talk about how that detail added to the whole.
• Use those behind the scenes photos with yourself in them!! Everyone has different comfort levels with showing up on their feed. Don’t want to show your face, crop in to just your hands at work! It humanizes the work you did, connecting your work with you in the minds of the viewers. Help them associate you with the amazing service or product you offer.
  AND…these ones generally get great interaction and more shares as our minds are wired to connect with people.
• Tell stories! Tell about the idea the client brought and how you made it unique to them. Tell about troubles you had and how you overcame them. Talk about how you teamed up with another vendor or business for that photo. What did you learn?
• Pair the photos with client reviews and testimonials.
• We all do those “in the moment” posts because we just need something up. These photos make for great quick grabs for those!
• Use the photos as the background for a quote.
• One big tip…don’t forget to tag and mention your clients and other contributors! This is an AMAZING way to make connections and build your web of friendors.

3. Update your Website

Whether you love updating your website monthly or you do it once a year, save a folder of Favorite Photos so that when you’re ready you can pull those in and update your website quickly and easily! Get your best work up on your website. Show off what you can do! Remember you don’t have to update your entire website all in one go…when you get an amazing photo back of your amazing work, switch out an old photo on your website for the new one. It’s a small thing that has big impact!

4. Use these as Stock Images

Too many of us get in the line of thinking that we can only use a photo once, or that posting old photos isn’t authentic. Not true! Reuse the photos you get. Make this easy on yourself. Think of these as custom stock images for your brand. They are yours to use over and over again. That means they are also excellent in marketing materials. Brochures, cards, flyers, ads, magazines, etc.

5. Use Filters to Match Your Brand

I know…other photographers will probably disown me for this, but oh well.

Business owners can often choose the photographer they want for branding photos, but wedding vendors choices are the photos they get themselves and whatever the style is of the hired wedding photographer. Not every photographer is going to match your business brand and vibe. That’s just how it is.

I recognize that my style may be too colorful or bright for some brands. I’m personally ok with wedding vendors adding filters or slightly editing the image to more match their brand. Most photographers aren’t ok with this, so definitely check before you edit the photos. They may say “no way,” or they may be ok with it as long as you mention that you’ve edited the photo when you credit them.

This of course is just the tip of the ice berg when it comes to using images to boost your business! We can really dive into more specific examples over on social media, so be sure to follow along there as we dissect this more.

What other road blocks or hurdles do you face when it comes to using images provided to your business? Comment below and let’s workshop these and get the kinks out so using images to boost your business is easy peasy!

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I’d love to connect with you!