Personal branding is crucial in the digital landscape, and a styled office for themed photoshoots is the secret ingredient you didn’t know you needed.
Screens are the new storefronts and office spaces. Gone are the days of just relying on physical shops to sell from and glamorous waiting rooms, or boardrooms with a view to meet in. Now we work, meet, and sell from our laptops. But here’s the thing: when your screen is your new business space, you need to style it if you want to attract your future clients and customers.
Show don’t Tell
Think of your themed photoshoot as your very own virtual stage where you get to show off your brand personality and vibe to the world. You get to say “this is how it feels when we work together” or “this is how it feels when you interact with my products” without actually saying anything at all. You get to SHOW instead of tell and that speaks volumes on your behalf.
Compared to setting up a physical space, you’re in for a huge saving BUt you still need to invest in your digital appearance if you want to stand outline.
Setting up your next themed photoshoot
Let’s undress the power of personal branding and styled office space for your next themed photoshoot.
In this post, we feature a styled office space for a services business. But you can apply these ideas and prep work to your virtual store too.
Establishing your Online Persona
Part of establishing your business’s online persona is including yourself in the mix. With founders, entrepreneurs, and owners often being the face of their brand, using yourself as part of your online persona can be incredibly beneficial, even if you’re not just a personal brand.
That’s because when your clients and customers see the person behind the business, it creates a sense of trust and authenticity (especially if they have any interaction with you during or after the sale).
Putting your best foot forward
People want to know who they are doing business with, and by putting yourself out there, you’re showing that you stand behind your brand and are proud to be associated with it. You also get to showcase your personality and unique style, setting you apart from everyone else. Incorporating heightened elements of yourself into your online persona elevates your brand. So think of personal branding as an elevated version of you. You get to highlight the very best, most delightful parts of you.
Step 1: Reference Boards
First things first: which personalities and characters are you drawing inspiration from? Like a mood board is needed for your brand identity and content styling, a reference board is needed for your personal photoshoots.
This can include images of people online in poses you’d like to replicate, in environments you want to recreate, in makeup you want to do, or simply the essence or vibe you want to capture in your personal styling.
The Social Design Style Guide shows you exactly how to complete this process to DIY it and it’s available inside the Content Gold course in Create Business Academy.
Here’s an example of my “personal vibe” reference board for the Malva PR-styled shoot.
I wanted the queen of movie-magic PR “Samathan Jones” with real-life PR queen, Kris Jenner (the ultimate Momanger vibe for her / and Mominatrix vibe for me) mixed with some classic Kimmy K, combined with my style icon, Pricilla Presley, a little Betty Boob playful fun and to pay homage to my past self – an alter ego I created called Miss Malva. All these personalities combined into my more mature Ms. Malva PR Maven of 2022.
So I had the outfits, shoes, accessories, make-up, and hair sorted. Next, it was time to style the space.
Step 2: Brand Identity into Brand Elements and Props
Based on the brand identity and mood board, with some of the content styling from the website, we created a concept board with elements and props to include.
Here’s the example:
To get to the place where you know what these are, do the Brand Life process outlined in Activate Your Creative Genius found in Create Business Academy.
It explains how to extract the exact visuals that represent the essence of your brand and then translate and expand them into brand associations, elements, and props to use in everyday life with your brand.
Step 3: Combine Everything Into A Themed Photoshoot
Now it’s time to put everything together and shoot!
Here are some of the photographs from the Malva PR-themed photoshoot.
These pictures can be used for the website, blog, emails, and across social media. Always remember to film behind-the-scenes content to make short-form videos too!
To speak to us about Personal Branding, Styled Offices, or Themed Photoshoots, email TV@ilovemalva.com
To DIY your own Personal Branding etc. visit Create Business Academy.com
Recommended Reading
From Branding to Bonding: The Power of Translating Your Brand into Content Styling
The Rise of Relatable Content: Why Social Media Relevance Matters More Than Video Quality
