#181: The Vicious Visibility Cycle (and how to get out of it)

Speaker: 00:00:08

You are listening to take it

personally, a podcast for photographers

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about the personal side of business

and the art of standing out.

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Here.

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I'll help you build a business and a

brand that is uniquely you if you want to

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attract dream clients and stop looking at

the competition to decide your next move.

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If you are ready to show up as a

confident branding authority to help

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you serve your clients and consider

your goals and priorities too.

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If you want to make your mark in a

new, underserved niche of photography,

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then this is the place for you.

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I'm your host, Maddie Ashong, South

Dakota brand photographer and educator.

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I'm a straight shooting

Instagram obsessed.

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Diehard Swifty who has built a multi-six

figure business on the back of brand

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photography all while raising a

family, and I know you can do the same.

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Let's get ready to take it personally.

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Have you ever been in a phase

where you are absolutely

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slammed with work so slammed?

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That posting to Instagram just

falls straight to the bottom of your

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list and you tell yourself, well,

that's fine because I'm booked.

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I don't need to post.

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Right now I have clients.

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My clients are my priority.

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And then two or three months later, you're

staring at an empty inbox wondering.

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Um, where did everybody go?

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I've been there.

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Unfortunately, my students in

rebrand have also been there.

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Honestly, most photographers I know have

been there, and there is a name for this.

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I call it the vicious visibility

cycle, and it is not a

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place where you want to be.

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So here's how the cycle works.

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First, you get busy, you're fully booked,

your head is down in your client work, and

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so your social media goes silent because

you think, well, this isn't a priority.

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I don't need this right now.

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I need to focus on my current clients.

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And you are half right, but when busy

season reps up, suddenly your inquiries.

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Are slowing down too

sometimes to a complete step.

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Sometimes you're like, I haven't had

an inquiry all week, or I haven't

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had an inquiry in a full month.

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What the heck is going on?

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So q scramble mode, right?

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You post like crazy, hoping to fill

your calendar again, and then eventually

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you maybe start to see traction

bookings start to come in, and then

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you get busy and you disappear again.

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Sound familiar.

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The tricky part here and with marketing

in general is that the gap in your

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inquiries doesn't happen immediately.

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It happens months after you stop

showing up, and so it's really

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easy to miss this connection.

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By the same token, it usually takes a

couple of months of you being consistent

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and actually doing your marketing.

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For your inquiries to start up again.

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So we're looking at like pretty

significant gaps on either

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end of this, which can make it

really difficult to understand.

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Oh, because I am not marketing,

I am not getting inquiries.

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'cause there's like a two to three

month lag time in that connection.

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This happens because photographers

don't see marketing as necessary.

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They're still looking at Instagram

as a fun place to watch viral videos,

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and not a place where they can grow

their brand and grow their visibility.

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But it's both.

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Marketing is a non-negotiable.

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If you want your business to be here five

years from now, it is not a nice to have.

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That is the first mindset

shift that you need to make.

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You do not have the luxury of

not having time for marketing.

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As photographers when we get started,

our business can be almost fully

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sustained with the power of a really

good referral and that is magical.

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I am not knocking referrals.

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Some of my very best

clients come from referrals.

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But referrals are not consistent.

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Referrals don't create consistency

in the inquiries and the leads that

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you're getting in your business.

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So referrals can't exist on their

own or perhaps they can for a

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while, which I think is how a lot of

photographers get into this situation is.

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They are able to grow their business to a

certain place based on mostly referrals.

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And then they get to a point whether

they have raised their prices or they're

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attracting a different level of client,

or they've just been in business for a

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while and they have served the people

in their immediate circle already.

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They get to this place where referrals

are not going to cut it anymore,

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at least as like the only thing

driving inquiries in their business.

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There needs to be something else,

and that's where marketing really

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needs to step up, because marketing

can create so much consistency

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in the leads and inquiries that

you're getting in your business.

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And marketing is Instagram

for most photographers.

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Marketing is making sure that you

are posting consistently, that

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you're showing up on stories.

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But unfortunately, so many

photographers see this.

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As a nice to have and

not a non-negotiable.

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I wish that more photographers

understood that booked out photographers.

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Are marketing consistently, and

not just marketing consistently,

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but marketing thoughtfully.

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They are aware of what their ideal

client needs to hear and the process

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that that ideal client needs to go

through before they ever book, and

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that's what their content is leading

them through on a consistent basis.

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Marketing is probably 90% of what I

do and what I work on, like when I am

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working on my business, I'm working on

marketing, I'm working on messaging.

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I'm looking at like past clients and

saying like, okay, I really wanna

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work with more clients like this.

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What were some things that she said

that I could potentially infuse into my

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website or my sales page, or my social

media content, whatever it might be.

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I am constantly working on marketing

because on the services side, I've got it.

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I'm good.

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I'm very confident in the service that

I'm offering, and you probably are too

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if you listen to this podcast, right?

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Like you know how to deliver a brand

session that your clients rave about, you

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know how to deliver a brand session that

your clients post all over their social

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media, like you know how to do that.

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But now you need to know how to market

your business so you have those clients

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consistently coming into your business.

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When you are inconsistent in your

marketing, this creates both a

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trust and a visibility problem.

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When you disappear for long

stretches, a couple things happen.

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One, you fall off people's radar,

so when they're ready to book,

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they don't even think of you.

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So much of marketing is

just staying top of mind.

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Not every single post needs to say book.

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Now, limited availability, like actually.

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Don't say that.

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That's not what your

marketing should consist of.

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Your marketing should

simply be being top of mind.

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And yes, sometimes those posts are

gonna be more strategic than others,

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but sometimes those posts are gonna be

like a trending audio or a trending meme

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or just like posting to your stories,

talking about what you're doing that day.

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Like it doesn't have to be super

deep every single day for it

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to work because the point is

that we're staying top of mind.

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And I wanna be clear, that doesn't

mean that you can put in zero effort

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when it comes to your marketing.

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There does need to be

a strategy behind it.

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It can also happen where

you are consistently posting

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and nothing is happening.

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And in that case we need to

look at your strategy and like

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what you are actually saying.

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But if your last post was four

weeks ago, we gotta start there.

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That's where we're starting.

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We're starting with consistency

with your visibility.

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So when you're not being consistent,

they're not even thinking about

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you when it's time to book, and

that's gonna create a problem.

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The next thing that happens is that

your feed stops reflecting your best

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work or your current availability.

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I even would argue that if it stops

reflecting the current season of your

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life and business, that's a problem.

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If you are a dual positioned

photographer, so someone who's

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offering brand photography and

wedding photography or seniors.

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If we are at the end of summer

heading into fall, and the last

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post on your feed is from a spring

wedding, like that's a problem.

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We need to make sure that what

you're currently posting is

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reflective of what's happening and

also what you want to be booking.

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So your feed stops reflecting your

best work or your current availability.

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Often, when you stop posting for

long enough, you start to deal

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with this like paralyzation about

what you are posting and this

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perfectionism that kind of seeps in.

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It tends to happen when it's been a while

when you've posted and all of a sudden now

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it feels like everything in your business

is riding on this next social media post.

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You're like, okay, whatever this next

post is it's gonna change everything

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and it's, it has to communicate

everything that I've ever wanted

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to communicate in my marketing.

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And so maybe you have like five or

six sessions that you're sitting

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on shooting, which you likely do if

you're coming out of a busy season.

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But you feel like you can't post any of

them, or you don't know which one to post.

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And so then you just don't post anything.

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So that's a real thing

that can happen too.

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And then all of a sudden your very

best work and your most recent

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work is nowhere near your feed.

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And then the last thing that happens

is that people assume that you are

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either too busy or not in business

anymore or not taking new clients.

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And both of these are equally dangerous.

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If they are looking at your social

media, your digital home, and it

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looks like no one's home, they're

probably not going to inquire with you.

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They're probably just going to

jump to a conclusion in their mind,

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whether it's right or not, that

you either don't have time for them

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or you're not doing this anymore.

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When you are consistent in your content

and you are consistently working on your

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visibility, even if it's not like super

curated and super planned, it works.

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We talked about this on

a recent rebrand call.

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We just wrapped up our rebrand

retreat and a lot of my students

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left with this really fresh energy.

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They were given two, three days

to really just think about and

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talk about and work on their

business, which is really magical.

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And so, so many of them went home with

this excitement to get back to work.

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And my student, Roxanne.

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Recently shared that after she went

home from retreat, and as I'm recording

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this retreat was a week and a half,

it was like 10 days ago, so this was

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very recently, but she was consistently

posting at retreat, and again, it

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wasn't like these super curated posts.

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She was very much just like documenting

what was happening at the retreat.

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She was sharing what was going

on and relating it back to her

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business and to her clients and

something that they could care about.

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So she stayed really, really

visible and then sent.

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Then she's been using the work

that we worked on at retreat,

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the sessions that we shot and the

portfolio building that we did.

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She has been posting that to her feed and

within 10 days, she's now booked through

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October, and it's currently mid August.

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That is not a coincidence.

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That is visibility at work.

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And it goes to show you that

so much of visibility is

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literally just being visible.

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It's not necessarily creating

content that's like going to go

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viral and get all of these likes

and like, yeah, that, that's great.

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That is super great if

that happens to you.

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But that happens to me very rarely and

I'm still as booked as I want to be.

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You know what I mean?

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So like it doesn't need to be this like

crazy content strategy where you're.

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Thinking of something super original

and like creating these graphics in

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Canva that are taking you hours and

hours to put these posts together.

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It's just staying consistent.

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It's just staying visible.

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So why do photographers

stay stuck in this cycle?

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One, we believe that marketing

takes too much time when we are

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busy, and that's just not true.

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It can be true.

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I have seen it be true.

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It has been true in my business.

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I have had to like slap my hand

and be like, put Canva down.

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It doesn't have to be that complicated,

but I have also seen it be very simple.

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In these busy seasons, we

gotta lean into simple.

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We also have this all or nothing mindset.

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If I can't do five amazing

posts every single week, I might

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as well just not post it all.

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Or maybe that's not even what you're

thinking, but you're thinking like what

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I said earlier about that paralyzation.

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Well, it's been so long since I have

posted that this next post has to

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communicate everything I've ever

wanted to communicate in my entire

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business, and that's so much pressure.

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So I'm just not going to post.

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We also way over complicate

content creation.

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Instead of leaning into documentation

marketing, which I'm gonna talk about in

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a second, this is what Roxanne did very

well, and she's booked through October.

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We also think that every single

post has to be portfolio perfect.

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My friends, we don't, social media

is one of those things where like,

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honestly, I, this is perhaps an

unpopular opinion, I guess, I don't know.

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But when it comes to social media.

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Quantity is better than quality.

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Now there's like a million asterisks

and like caveats to that because you

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can't just be putting out shit content,

like that's not what I'm talking about.

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But I see specifically photographers

because we are creative and we want

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our feeds to look pretty, put so much

pressure on every single individual

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post because they wanted to communicate.

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Everything, and I have fallen trapped

to this time and time again, and I

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have to consistently remind myself

no one post has to do everything.

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No one paragraph on my

website has to do everything.

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It's all part of my positioning.

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It's all part of my online reputation.

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Very rarely are people consuming

one piece of content, right?

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Yes, they might scroll past a

piece of content in their feed,

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but most of the time they have

context from previous content.

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They've seen your stories.

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They've maybe even gone to your Instagram

profile and looked at a couple of posts

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to see if they want to follow you.

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People are smart.

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Not one single post has to do everything.

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In fact, a single post should communicate

a single idea to a single person.

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That's it.

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That's what a post should do.

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It should be a micro topic

within your business.

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If more photographers approached social

media, like a giant science experiment,

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we would be better off because the

reality is in order to figure out what

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works and what doesn't and what your

audience connects with and what content

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format does best on your profile.

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And like all of those things, in order to

figure that out, you have to try it all.

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So that's what I mean when

I say quantity over quality.

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It's not that the quality doesn't matter,

it's that in order to get to quality,

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you have to go through a lot of quantity.

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Like you gotta go through some

stuff that sucks a little bit.

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You have to have posts that don't do well.

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I've been working with a social media

manager for the past couple of months

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to take some stuff off my plate and

the first thing that we do at the

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top of every meeting that we have

is talk about what worked last month

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and what didn't work last month.

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Every single month I have posts

that flop that is from somebody who

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has been doing this for 15 years.

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I have a background in social

media and digital media.

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That is literally what my job was before

I went full-time in my own business.

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I have worked in social media

since Twitter, literally launched,

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like I've been doing this for a

long time, and every single month.

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I have a post that gets 15 likes,

like I have 14,000 followers.

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Okay?

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15 likes is a little sad, but it happens.

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It happens, and that's okay because

we learn from it every single month.

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We're learning from it, and we're

saying, okay, we're not gonna do that

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again, or we're gonna tweak it a tiny

bit and see if that resonates more.

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It is a giant science experiment.

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You don't need to be perfect in what

you're posting, but you do need presence.

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You do need to be there figuring it out.

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So how do you break the

vicious visibility cycle?

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This is what I teach my

students in rebrand, and this

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is what I want for you too.

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I want you to have a visibility, safety

net, a plan that is so simple that you can

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stick with it no matter how busy you are.

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Step one.

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And the biggest thing, is to

shift to documentation marketing.

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Documentation.

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Marketing is exactly what it sounds like.

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It is.

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Documenting what you are doing.

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You have maybe heard the

phrase document don't create.

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That's That is what we are doing.

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We are documenting.

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We are not getting into Canva and using

a template and spending all of this time.

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No.

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Like we are finding a photo on our phone.

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We are putting some text on

it via the Instagram editor.

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And we are like posting a carousel

or we are turning our camera on and

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doing a talking head reel, which I know

probably scares the shit out of you.

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But here's the thing, that's a

really effective use of your time

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when it comes to creating content.

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you are a yapper.

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Like I am certified

yapper reporting for duty.

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That is a really effective use

of your time when it comes to

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creating content because all you

have to do is talk and hit publish.

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That's it.

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If that feels really scary

doing that on Instagram Stories.

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Instead, if you're like not a

certified yapper, absolutely not.

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: 00:17:07

Then you're gonna take a photo of

yourself, a cute little selfie, if

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: 00:17:10

you will, or a photo of your desk or

a photo of a recent photo that you

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: 00:17:14

took because you're super talented and

you're gonna put words on top of it.

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: 00:17:17

And you're going to type

it instead of say it.

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: 00:17:19

Okay.

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: 00:17:19

You are documenting, not creating.

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: 00:17:22

This could look like sharing the

coffee order that you picked up

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: 00:17:25

before you headed to a shoot or

the fact that you picked up coffee.

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: 00:17:28

I've been talking about systems

lately on the podcast and in my

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: 00:17:32

content because I did a webinar about

systems with my friend Coley James.

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: 00:17:35

Shout out and.

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: 00:17:37

I started talking about how I pick up

coffee for my clients on the way to

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: 00:17:41

a shoot, and the reason I'm able to

do that is because of my CRM and I've

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: 00:17:45

gotten so much great feedback from

photographers and not photographers

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: 00:17:48

who are like, that's a great idea.

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: 00:17:50

How do you do that?

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: 00:17:51

Just me sharing that,

I'm picking up coffee.

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: 00:17:54

And here's how I'm able to do

that is getting so much chatter.

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: 00:17:58

So it doesn't have to be complicated.

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: 00:18:00

It's just a part of what

you're doing on the daily.

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: 00:18:03

This comes back to the importance

of a little like FAFO, if you will,

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: 00:18:07

because I would've never known that

me picking up coffee for my brand

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: 00:18:12

photography client was going to resonate.

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: 00:18:15

I was just sharing and that's

what ended up resonating.

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: 00:18:18

So that's why sharing and maintaining

that visibility is important.

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: 00:18:22

And just throwing spaghetti at the

wall sometimes, because you never

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: 00:18:25

know what's going to resonate,

this is part of figuring it out.

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: 00:18:28

Next we're gonna create a

minimum viable posting plan.

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: 00:18:32

This is your baseline

for when you're busy.

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: 00:18:34

So maybe this is like, I'm

gonna do one post a week.

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: 00:18:37

Maybe it's, I'm gonna do an Instagram

story five days a week, so like

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: 00:18:41

Monday through Friday, and it's

just gonna be something like, I'm

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: 00:18:44

not gonna put guardrails around it.

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: 00:18:45

I'm just gonna be like,

Hey, I'm still here.

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: 00:18:48

I, maybe, I maybe wouldn't say that, but

it's like, it's proof of life, right?

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: 00:18:52

That's all it's going to be.

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: 00:18:53

Maybe it's two posts a

week, three posts a week.

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: 00:18:55

I, I really don't care.

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: 00:18:57

It really does not matter to me like what

the number is, especially if you are in a

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: 00:19:01

season where you're like, uh, okay, let's.

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: 00:19:03

Say it's August and now I'm booked

through October, November because

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: 00:19:07

I've maintained my visibility.

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: 00:19:09

If I don't need clients now for a couple

of months, then I can take my foot off

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: 00:19:15

the gas just a little bit, maintain

visibility, maintain consistency,

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: 00:19:19

but I don't need to be posting five

posts a week because I don't need

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: 00:19:23

a bunch of new clients right now.

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: 00:19:24

Now talk to me in 30 days, right?

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: 00:19:26

In 30 days I might put my

foot back on the gas a little.

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: 00:19:29

Ramp it up because now I want those

clients for November, December.

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: 00:19:32

You see what I mean?

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: 00:19:33

So if you are in more of a coasting

state of your business where you

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: 00:19:39

don't need to be booking new clients

right this moment, then your posting

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: 00:19:44

schedule can shift with that.

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: 00:19:47

Step three is repurpose your content.

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: 00:19:50

I am such a fan of repurposing content.

365

: 00:19:52

So you're gonna go back through old

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