Maddy Shine – Get Visible, Get More Clients as a Wedding Photographer

INTRODUCING MADDY SHINE

SMALL BIZ VISIBILITY MENTOR & EDUCATOR

Hi, I’m Maddy Shine, visibility expert + business mentor, and I’ve spent 11+ years guiding thousands of women how to take up space on the internet (and a lot longer telling people what to do!)

Since the early years of learning to code my own website as a teenage nerd in the 90s, and now with over 20 years in the online marketing space + 11 years running my own business, I have developed a sassy but soft approach to life, and business. You see, I love supporting brilliant women business owners get more sales through learning and connecting in my Visible Vibes membership community, my online courses, my 1:1 work and my Visibility Talks podcast.

I believe education is key to supporting women to thrive. I am passionate about ALL women earning their own money, their independence and their freedom. We have SO many responsibilities handed to us, but with education we have choice. We have been taught time and again that best practice is what the bro marketers would have us believe. That’s not what we do here. We support and we cheer and we flourish. Ready to be more visible?

Hi, I am Aida, host of My Wedding Season -The Podcast!
If you prefer listening, this blog post is also available in audio format on my podcast: Episode 59

MY WEDDING SEASON – THE PODCAST

Subscribe on iTunes / Spotify

PODCAST SPONSOR – PIC-TIME

ONLINE PHOTO GALLERIES FOR PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHERS

Disclaimer: I will earn a commission from Pic-Time, if you use my code – it has no extra cost to you, it is just a way to support me as a content creator! Read: Referral Programm / Affiliate Disclosure

Pic-Time is an advanced online gallery platform for photographers, offering beautiful galleries, a built-in print store, marketing automation, a slideshow creator, and blogs. They are enhancing their services using AI technology. Depending on the plan, you can use the AI Writing Assistant for Blogs, AI Image Filter and AI Photo Search for Clients.

If you have been tuning into this podcast long enough, you already know that I am a huge fan of creating SEO-optimized content, in the form of blogs, to attract potential clients.

Pic-Time now allows you to easily use your images that are already uploaded in a gallery to create a blog post. And then, with just a few clicks, you can easily generate SEO-optimized text for your blog. Don’t worry about it sounding machine-generated, because you can always go in and make changes for it to sound like you. It is just there to assist you in the process!

And now, you also have the ability to quickly filter through images in your galleries. This is particularly helpful when you want to share images with vendors after a wedding. Or you can use it to select images to share on social media – make sure you check out the newly revamped Mobile App!

Your clients are now also able to search through the gallery to find people or by using keywords. This feature allows them to easily share images and has proven to increase the likelihood of print orders because it is directly linked to the store.

And the cool thing is that multiple languages are supported including Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese.

When you are ready to upgrade to a paid plan to gain access to all these features, be sure to use the code AIDA to earn 1-month free!

MY WEDDING SEASON – THE PODCAST

INTERVIEW WITH MADDY SHINE: MAIN TAKEAWAYS

(I, Aida, have at times paraphrased and other times directly quoted what Maddy and I have said in the episode to make it easier to understand – this is not a direct transcription.)

Are you experiencing social media fatigue and hesitant to keep showing up online to promote your business?
In this article, Maddy Shine helps us overcome our objections and gives us advice on how to generate more inquiries for our wedding photography business by inserting our personality into our online marketing.

TACKLING OBJECTIONS TO BECOMING MORE VISIBLE ONLINE

Aida: There are a lot of challenges for people to make themselves visible in order to get clients. Can you give us some encouragement and advice?

Maddy: First of all, there is a lot of talk around social media fatigue, and clients ghosting. What I often see, particularly with photographers, put so much of their self-worth into what they do. We want gauranteed results – yes, I would like entirely risk-free marketing. I would like all me decisions made for me, but also complete control over all my decisions. No wonder we have decision-fatigue and marketing-fatigue.

The biggest problem is that you believe that everyone else is doing that, so you are not doing it. Even if I teach SEO techniques, some people say, everyone is doing it, I want something different. There is a reason those people are doing it, because that is where the audience is. If your clients are hanging out on Instagram, you need to be on Instagram. It is a free platform and we get to promote our work. You are competing on these platforms not only against other platforms, but also everyone else.

Therefore, we actually need to do it more – post at different times of the day, post different types of photos etc… Experiment more! That way, you won’t have a huge attachment to what you are posting. That is the only way that you are going to be more consistent and get really analytical about when to post and what to post.

INSERT YOUR PERSONALITY INTO YOUR MARKETING

Aida: At this point for photographers, if you are not getting clients, you are very soon not having a business. Therefore, their focus needs to be on generating those inquiries. Obviously, there is the path of being found on Goolge and focusing on SEO, but if people are just starting out, they need to realise that it is not something that is going to work from today to tomorrow – that is the long game, and the pay-off is also long-term. Yes, work on that, but if you are trying to get booking for this wedding season, you need to focus on being very visible on social media. Can we chat about inserting our personality in marketing?

Maddy: I have never met a boring wedding photographer! You are wonderful and creative, and you have stories to share. There are introverts and extroverts, for sure, but I have never met a boring one. But you are hiding behind that camera. What I love to encourage wedding photographers to do is to start that process earlier. This is where good old videos come in. You can start showing that personality sooner. You need to show people who you are.

Marketing is a conversation -meaning you are not talking at them – it is two people talking. Listen to what your audience wants to hear. Share the answers that your clients ask you after they become a client. A lot of photographers hold back from sharing their “gems” unless they are paying clients. You can make videos, talking straight to the camera, as if you are talking to your clients. It lets people know who you are and they feel like you will make them feel at ease – they can become more comfortable to inquire with you.

Also, you underestimate the lurkers and stalkers.

Aida: Oh yes, there are a lot of people watching but not interacting – especially on Instagram. Sometimes, they are just waiting for the right time to inquire. You don’t even know who they might tell about you.

Maddy: Yes, absolutely! I love talking about lurkers and stalkers. We are no longer liking and commenting on Instagram like we used to. I get more chats in my Stories – I use it like a living room, have a cup of tea. It is great way to separate away from your feed, where you have your beautiful photos, and Stories can be where you hang out. A lot of photographers are still not doing that and letting us in.

FACING THE FEAR OF NEGATIVE COMMENTS & BACKLASH

Aida: Stories feels like a safe space, I kind of know who is there. It doesn’t feel as exposed. The hesitation that I have with Reels is that it feels like it is sent out into the abyss. Even more so on TikTok. A lot of photographers have a hesitation to go on TikTok because the video can end up anywhere aka “the wrong-side of TikTok”.

Maddy: I wouldn’t wish any sort of negative attention on anyone. It is a real and valid fear. I have put out so many posts in the past 12 years, and I only have one instance where things went sour. We need to be considerate of what we share. Think about the purpose of your content. I advice you to talk to the camera as if they are your favorite couple in the whole world.

Aida: Overthinking is holding us back, right?

Maddy: We want to be perfect, because it feels risk-free. We don’t want to fail.
Two things: 1. We haven’t decided what success means. 2. Done is better than perfect.

KNOW, LIKE, TRUST

Aida: If people don’t know about you, they are not going to book you. It is all about the know, like, trust factor. Let us get known by becoming visible.

Maddy: Absolutely. We often associate the know, like, trust formula with people who have big platforms. “We can’t really be trusted online until we have 10K followers!”. The couples who want to invest in you, want to get to know you as a person. You might have the things you like on your about page (e.g. you like Wes Anderson) but you need to bring this stuff forward and share it.

People hold back by thinking “what if they don’t like it?”. You need to go back to what your past clients said about you.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE AUTHENTIC?

Aida: What is your take on authenticity?

Maddy: In my mind, matching what you say you are going to do with what you do.

What I love about photographers doing video is that I know what they are going to be like when I meet them. I know what they are going to be like when we meet for a Zoom call and at the wedding, or even pre-wedding shoot. There is not much more to it.

Aida: I was watching a video with Seth Godin and he said “I don’t want my doctor to be authentic. I want the doctor to perform what he is supposed to perform, regardless of him being sad or happy.”. What promise did you make, and you need to deliver on it.

Maddy: It is that matching what you are promising with what you are delivering. And that starts with the very first time they see you online.

I am so grateful to Maddy for taking the time share so much valuable information with us.