Personal brand isn’t about showing the ‘perfect’ side of you. It’s about showing the ‘real you’ too, so your followers and customers can identify with you and get to know you, which helps build trust.
And with so many ‘mumpreneurs’ starting up as self employed because of the childcare and school run struggles, and the huge increase in mummy bloggers and influencers, increasingly including your family in your personal brand shoot becomes necessary. Because if you’re talking about the real you, and the ‘behind the scenes’ aspects of your working life, for many of us that is a huge factor! It definitely is for me. Working mostly from home and having two very young children means simple things like answering calls or responding to messages on social media are achieved while secretly being jumped on my a small but very enthusiastic (or whingey) snot covered fiend.
It also gives you something to talk about, and with you posting on a daily basis, it can be tough to keep coming up with things to say. Real life gives you plenty to talk about. What goes on behind the scenes, how you juggle your working life and home life. All great ideas to inject a bit of your personality into your personal brand.
The struggle though is making these pictures look good. And having the time to take pictures of yourself in these situations. Especially if you’re writing about how tough it is to work while juggling motherhood. It’s hard enough working and managing the kids at the same time as it is, without adding ‘take pictures of you doing it’ to the equation! Trust me. I’ve tried. And I’m supposed to know what I’m doing!
Yes, taking pictures of the ‘reality’ is great, and staging it can look a bit contrived, but doing it all in a photoshoot is much easier and you’re more likely to get the results you want. And more quickly. Doing it myself with all the equipment and know how took DAYS! Plus the point here is the message itself and having an image to illustrate what you are talking about, rather than documenting the actual struggle accurately. Save that for the blogs!
Things like this are always discussed in the initial chat. I find out about you, your business and your working life, what you usually post about and can then make suggestions on things that would be great to include in your personal brand photoshoot. Kids might be one of them! But it doesn’t mean you have to include them. And if you do, we can always try to include a few nice ones (they don’t all have to have the harassed mum look!) and they might even make it onto your wall at home too!
