1. Same Brand Different Networks: Visual Branding 101 &
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Over 12 years of marketing, branding, eCommerce & online experience allows personal examples when writing posts. We have a broad, but defined niche that offers plenty of content that will resonate with readers from many industries. We have a large network of influencers to consult & tap for information. That means you're subject to the same brand demands as Apple, Coca Cola, and General Motors, only with an infinitesimal sliver of their marketing and advertising budgets. You've got to do the same things they had to do – come up with a unique name, a catchy tag-line, an easily identifiable logo. In developing a strategic marketing plan, your brand serves as a guide to understanding the purpose of your key business objectives and enables you to align the plan with those objectives. Branding doesn't just count during the time before the purchase—the brand experience has to last to create customer loyalty.

Building a recognizable brand can keep clients coming back to your photography business for more. Master the basics of good branding with four easy steps.

A great brand can make or break your creative business, which is why branding your photography business is so important. Branding is essential for building a reputation amongst the creative world. When someone sees your visuals, they should instantly recognize it as your brand.

Good branding helps potential customers recognize your work in the wild, and remember it when they are thinking of hiring you for upcoming campaigns. If you showcase your work on Shutterstock, a good brand comes down to ensuring that your portfolio is cohesive and set up for success.

Same Brand Different Networks: Visual Branding 101 &

In the following article, we’ll be sharing a few branding tips for you to implement in your photography business. You can apply the same general rules if you operate any kind of visual online business where your goal is to sell your creative work. Here are a few considerations that you should implement to build a strong and successful photography brand.

What does “branding your business” really mean?

Essentially, branding your business means creating a cohesive look and feel to your publicly shared work. A strong brand ensures that all aspects of your business match. Branding and marketing expert Seth Godin defines a brand as “The set of expectations, memories, stories, and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.”

In short, branding makes your business memorable compared to competitors in similar fields.

This is incredibly important in the photography industry. After all, there are more readily available photographers than ever before.

On Shutterstock, for example, we have over 1.4 million artists on our global marketplace. That’s a lot of talented individuals to compete within a single space. But, a solid brand will help you stand out.

How can I build a photography brand that stands out?

Building a brand that stands out comes down to a few key considerations. Ideally you should implement these in your photography business before you even start selling. We’ll go over them in detail, but essentially they are:

• Find your unique selling proposition
• Creating a cohesive visual identity
• Set up a successful online business

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These are three very important but very simple branding considerations. Let’s go over how you can use them to maximize your photography business online.

Step 1: Find Your Unique Selling Proposition

Your unique selling proposition (USP) is defined as the factor or consideration that you present as the top reason that your product is different from and/or better than that of the competition. Essentially, it’s the thing in your visual business that sets you apart from the rest. Identifying this is the first step in creating your business, long before you start shooting or selling anything.

In photography industries, your USP can be a wide variety of things. To help find your USP, here are a few different areas to evaluate within your business and find your strengths.

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1. Geographic Location

Do you live somewhere truly unique? This can be a great place to start. If you live in a small town or a remote island, for example, your USP can be as simple as the location where you are based. This eliminates a lot of competition and allows you to be a specialist in your area.

2. Model Access

Access to models and/or people to shoot can be a huge USP for photographers looking to expand their photography business. Model access can be really difficult for some photographers, especially if you shoot stock. But if you have access to a diverse set of friends, family, and other colleagues who are open to being photographed, it can be a huge advantage to your work.

3. Editing Skills

Did you take a crash course on Photoshop techniques? This can really level up the work that you create. Have a background in motion design? Implementing different artistic techniques into your photography can set it apart from the rest.

These are just a few examples of USPs. It’s important to evaluate your work and what stands out to you as an advantage you have. For example, as a photographer who lives in a town of 3,000 people, my USP is my geographical location. I have access to landscapes around me that people visit as tourists, but few live near. That means that I get to scout locations at different times, different weather conditions, that some people will never have the opportunity to shoot. Find your unique selling proposition and use it to your advantage.

Step 2: Creating a cohesive visual identity

Creating a cohesive visual identity is probably the most important element of visual branding for photographers. When you look at a black and white landscape image from Ansel Adams, you instantly recognize it as his own. Peek at a studio photograph taken at The Factory in the 1960s and you’ll recognize Andy Warhol. Look at a moody portrait of a celebrity shot at some breathtaking destination, and you’ll probably see Annie Leibovitz.

These artists spent decades creating and refining their visual identity to create a cohesive look and feel to their work that’s instantly recognizable. You want people to look at your work, and recognize it as your work.

Check out this article to discover a visual identity that inspires your work:

Editing your work

Even as a beginner photographer, this is an important consideration to keep before you start editing your work. However, where you shoot, what you shoot, and how you edit your work is where your visual identity really shines.

Take a look at any photographer you admire. You’ll notice that their work is edited in a way where each image’s tones and colors look similar and complement the image next to it. Photographers often spend a lot of time developing presets that they save and apply to their work over and over again. Not only does this save photographers time in the darkroom, but it helps refine their photography brand. Each image compliments the next and works together to create a seamless portfolio visual experience.

Here are a few articles to consider reading to develop a unique editing style:

Curate your best work

Good photography is about quality over quantity. The better your images are, the more customers will want to keep coming back to your work. You know the saying one bad apple spoils the bunch? This is absolutely true in photography.

For example, let’s say you upload forty images to Shutterstock. Of those images, you have twenty that are fantastic, but you have twenty that are not great but you consider “good enough.” All of those images go to the same place—your portfolio. When a customer then looks at your portfolio, they see the whole collection, not just a single image. So, next to your incredible images they also see some work that is average. This brings the overall value and picture of your portfolio down.

If instead you upload twenty great images, you have a portfolio that customers look at and start wanting more. When a customer finds your work and online portfolio, they are getting a quick peek into your overall look and feel. Curate your best work and leave the rest on your hard drives. You have a limited amount of time to get someone’s attention. So, as the saying goes, put your best foot (or image) forward.

Step 3: Set Up a Successful Online Business

Once you’ve edited your images, it’s time to optimize your online portfolio and photography website. There are a few considerations that you should absolutely ensure you have available on your website.

1. Your Name

Whether it’s your business name or your personal name that you operate under, make sure your name is clearly visible to customers who find your work.

2. A logo/colors

Your logo and colors help define your photography brand. Work with a graphic designer to design a logo that suits your work. Then, select the colors you’d like to use throughout your website and social media accounts to better refine your visuals.

Same Brand Different Networks: Visual Branding 101 Pdf

3. Contact Information

Your preferable contact information should be clearly visible for customers to contact you with. Whether it’s your email address or phone number, make it clickable so that customers can easily get in touch with you if they want to hire your services.

4. Your Best Work

Your best work should be clearly visible on the first page of your website. Whether it’s one incredible image that fits your brand perfectly or a gallery of your favorite images, pick the style that works best for you.

5. Customer List

If you’ve worked with reputable brands in the past, put them on your website. Customers love to see past experiences.

If not, consider creating some “mock client images.” If you want to shoot products, practice shooting products you have at home and showcase those on your portfolio. The same goes for images of people if you want to shoot models. Showcase the work that you want to be hired for.

6. Ways to Purchase

Photographers should always maximize their opportunity to earn money off their work. So, ensure you have a clear way to purchase your work. Consider adding a link to your Shutterstock portfolio so customers can purchase your images directly. Similarly, most website providers have an integration to operate a print business or embed a print website to your work.

At a minimum, you should have a contact button for customers to get in touch with you to purchase your work.

Setting up your Shutterstock portfolio

There are now so many different ways that you can update and share information on your Shutterstock portfolio. So, why not ensure yours is optimized for your business? Setting up your Shutterstock portfolio might not seem like branding work, but it’s incredibly important. Here are a few different elements to consider.

1. Your name/ URL

Your Shutterstock URL and name should identify your business if you use your portfolio as a professional business. Shutterstock has some pretty awesome search optimization, which means when someone searches for you on Google, chances are your Shutterstock portfolio will be one of the first things they see. If your account name and URL has nothing to do with your work it’ll be really hard for people to find and purchase your work on Shutterstock.

2. About You

You now have the opportunity to add a small biography to your work and preview line. Use this also an opportunity to describe your unique selling proposition and what makes your portfolio unique compared to others on our marketplace.

3. Link your Social Media

You should absolutely link your social media accounts to your Shutterstock portfolio. Firstly, it will help people find your other work not on Shutterstock. This is also an awesome way for our team to find you and highlight you on our social media channels and blog, which could provide an awesome boost to your work.

4. Location

You now have the ability to publicly share your geographical location (country) on your portfolio. What this means is that customers looking for artists in specific countries or places will be able to find and purchase your work. This is great for customers searching for local artists in their market.

5. Create Collections

Curating collections of your best images is another way to optimize the visuals on your Shutterstock portfolio. Create collections based on trips, on shoots, on diversity elements, etc. The opportunities are endless. But, before you create a collection think about the customer you are trying to attract to that work.

Top image by LL_Studio.

Check out these articles for more photography business inspiration: