Fake it till you make it? Ehh, sorta...
How do you present yourself as a speaker without any photos from your events?
You fake it, of course, ;)
On several occasions, I’ve worked with speakers and facilitators who’ve done several gigs, but, for one reason or another, received zero image assets from their experiences.
Regardless of how transformational and inspirational they were from the room, they got ungatz (nothing) to show for it.
Needless to say, this is problematic when looking to share your experiences with your audience.
Photos of you speaking have several practical uses throughout your entire online presence:
Use them on your website as banners, specifically your speaker/one-sheet page
Social media posts where you place a quote from your keynote on the image itself
Leverage as a digital ad image to attract people to sign up for your services
Use as blog thumbnails
Printed materials, such as banners for a booth at a trade show
The applications are endless, but you get the point.
When you’re speaking on stage, you’re leveraging your superhero powers.
That is highly attractive and attention-grabbing to those who specifically need your personalized attention to help them get past what’s holding them back.
It’s important to leverage that emotional energy to fire up those you serve through this type of image content.
When I talked to my client Mary, she mentioned that although she had photos of her speaking when she was working in the corporate world, she had zero images that reflected her pivot into creating a business around fostering a healthy mindset.
In her case, we had to fake it a lil’ bit, :)
Fortunately, we had access to a common area in a friend’s building. Even more fortunately, the space felt like a convention hall or space where a keynote could be delivered…
...if you crop out the fact that it’s a common area and there’s no one else in the room but me and my camera!
Once I found a sweet spot for her to stand in the room - ie. away from anything that broke the illusion that this is a speaker giving a keynote - I prompted her to talk as if she were on stage and to be as demonstrative with her hands as she would be in that scenario:
As you can see, I captured speaking images of her from a variety of angles with a variety of emotions plastered on her face.
I wanted this section of her image content portfolio to be as diverse and versatile as possible with respect to leveraging them for marketing and promotional purposes.
Now, would it be nice to shoot a speaker in front of an auditorium of people? Of course it would! That energy can’t be faked.
But when you’re looking to create image assets that need to be done by yesterday, this is the next best option - especially when you already know how it feels to be in front of an actual audience.
I’m not suggesting to fake your experience in front of a room - just the photography part, if need be :)
In addition to these speaking from the stage images, I also spent several more hours with Mary creating some magical portraits.
Want to take a peek at them?
You sure can - right here!
PS - If you found this article valuable, I invite you to join my email list so that you save yourself from commuting to my blog every time I post something new, :)