My Story: Senior Photographer to Social Media Success

How I grew my business without Paid Ads. What if the key to future business success lies in the hands of today's high school seniors? Join me as I explore how my journey from x-ray tech to thriving entrepreneur can inspire your own path. In this kick-off to season two of Boost Your Visibility, I share the deeply personal story of building a photography business from scratch in a town where I knew no one. With the help of community connections, and my family, I've translated the art of capturing senior pictures into empowering business owners with the tools they need to shine online. You'll hear how the insights gleaned from working with teenagers have become the compass guiding businesses towards the trends of tomorrow.

Get ready to uncover the symbiotic relationship between photography and social media marketing, as I reveal the strategies that turned simple photo sessions into powerful marketing campaigns. Discover how collaborating with local businesses transformed my perspective and allowed me to create dynamic social media strategies that truly tell their stories. Whether you're a seasoned business owner or just starting out, this episode is packed with lessons on authenticity and growth. Tune in for an authentic conversation about balancing family life, entrepreneurship, and the ever-evolving landscape of digital visibility.

Please give a thumbs-up & subscribe!
===
Free Guide
===
Instagram

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome back to Boost your Visibility. It's officially season two and, although I love to keep this podcast about you and growing your business and all the ways that we can expand your reach online, since we're entering another season of the podcast, I wanted to do a little reintroduction video so that you can kind of learn how I can best connect with you and help you, how I can best connect with you and help you and relate with you, because we're all truly in this together and my why is really helping other people. And let's get to it. I started out as a photographer. I've been a photographer for 20 years. I just finished my 20th season. In fact, I'm recording this from the driver's seat of my car as I'm waiting for twin high school senior boys and their mom to show up for their senior session. So that side of my business is a huge part of my soul. I love seeing teenagers find their confidence in front of the camera and really help them to be seen, and I feel like this generation is very disconnected and because of that I have a very hard time letting go of doing senior pictures. I do feel like there's a transformation that happens in front of the camera for them that can't really be replicated or replaced in very many other ways. So I spend my summers working with high school seniors taking their senior pictures to honor their senior year. The other side of my business is marketing and basically I show people how I have grown organically through my photography business, but using every tool and lever that I could find online and, believe it or not, these teenagers have taught me or shown me most of it, and they help me every summer to see what's coming, because what teenagers are into is what businesses will be doing in six months to a year. So I teach small business owners and social media managers all the ways that social media works, but also the psychology behind who uses what platform and why. I hope that makes good sense.

Speaker 1: 2:17

But on a personal note, I am the wife to a robotics engineer. We've been married for 27 years. We have two kids that are just on the other side of growing up, so my daughter is going to be 22 this month. My son is 24. And they were three and five when I started this business, so I completely understand what it's like to try and grow something from nothing in a town where you know no one, but you feel so passionate about it because nothing. You want to grow something that works around your family. That was what I did. I was an x-ray tech actually prior to having kids and just when my son was born. And for me personally, I struggled with that schedule and my son had some health issues in the beginning and I really needed to be there and yet I was going stir crazy being at home all the time. I know a lot of people are amazing at homemaking and taking care of the house and doing amazing projects and cooking and baking for their family. I definitely am more of a tech geek and I need to be growing something digitally, I guess, and photography really fed that part of my brain and it also helped me to meet new people in a town where we didn't know anyone. We had just moved here. We live outside of Madison, wisconsin, in a small-ish city, and it has been a great place for our kids to grow up and for me to grow a business.

Speaker 1: 3:59

I work with a lot of local businesses, helping them to grow their social media online and basically the way it started was I did their family pictures the business owners years ago and over time someone would say hey, you know, I'm a remodeler. I don't know if you know I have this business, but do you think you could come and photograph these new kitchens that I've just completed? I'll line up like three of them in a day and I did and I loved it, and they would take the pictures and put them on their website and never use them any other way again. And that started to gnaw at me and through time I started to talk to them and say, hey, you know, you could put them on Instagram and they're like well, I could put them on there, but what do I say? And then that leads to a whole other conversation and just layers and layers of helping them to learn over time and they taught me so much and they still teach me.

Speaker 1: 4:52

There are certain core businesses that I work with locally, still on an occasional basis, to help them with their marketing strategy, and all of those businesses have completely unplugged from paid marketing and these businesses are multi-million dollar businesses. They're not small, they're mid-sized, and they've been able to do it with the help and training of an internal social media marketing person that I've helped to train so that they could grow organically and grow a community online and understand how all of these different apps reach different people. So all that to say, I love working with people. So all that to say, I love working with people. I love helping them to find their own confidence, whether it's in photography or in marketing or owning a business. I love the transformation of having someone start something that they're not doing. They weren't a super believer in meaning that they could do it or that they have value to give to the world. And again, that relates whether you're having your pictures taken or you're growing a business, because you have to show your face or your team's faces sometimes, and that feels very vulnerable.

Speaker 1: 6:18

How people are drawn to you and how you start to find the heart and soul of your brand and who you are and you start to see the pieces fall into place of making it a very natural part of your everyday. Again, whether you are a social media manager in a business or you own the business, social media should just be a natural part of your day. It shouldn't take up your entire day or your entire week. It should just be something that you grab your phone and take a short video when something's happening and then you put it back down and move on to whatever else you have to do, but then how do you apply that? That's where the gap is and that's the gap that I've found that I really am talented at helping people with.

Speaker 1: 6:56

So the final piece of the puzzle for me, the big moment that has really helped me to create online education and I'm about to launch a whole social media marketing curriculum course community the missing piece that I see with other online education I guess online teachers, online coaches is there is no personal, like cheerleader, I guess, or it's very sterile and very like. Here's the information now go do it, and for a lot of people, that's all they want. I personally and the people that I work with need kind of a BFF in marketing that they can send a quick text to or send a quick email and say, hey, I'm struggling with this or that. What do you think? Or could you look at these 10 TikToks and give me some critique? That's the gap that's missing for most people, because you can create things and follow steps, but to do that and consider the storytelling portion of it and what it is that your customers really want from you is difficult. It's really hard to see outside of yourself and to see outside of your business and to make it about the customer. That is a huge gap that I tend to fill well in teaching and helping people to kind of pivot their thinking to think like a customer instead of a marketer or business owner. So that is the long and the short of who I am.

Speaker 1: 8:31

On a more personal level, I have two dogs One is a Cavapoo, one is a Cavalier Yorkie and I adore them. We love them. They're just as much siblings as my two kids. I love nature and going for walks. You know, doing these photo shoots with high school seniors gets me out in nature and that's another huge part of who I am and what I love.

Speaker 1: 8:54

I grew up way out in the country. I grew up with artists for parents and grandparents and that was during the like 70s hippie days when my mom and my grandpa would make jewelry and it was just a really cool way to grow up being out in nature and doing these crafts with them and then going to flea markets and craft shows and selling those things and understanding people. My grandpa was amazing at connecting with people. In our family we we joke that my grandpa always had a new car and he never paid full price. He always ended up getting a better deal each time, and it was because the salespeople liked him so much, because they felt so seen and understood and he cared about them, that they just gave him a deal every time. So that is marketing and that is, you know. Those are the people that he also, you know, had as his customers.

Speaker 1: 9:52

So it goes all ways. You just care about people and the rest falls into place. You just need to learn the skills, how to implement it. And as long as you care about people and your customers, everything just happens beautifully. And I am the conduit, I'm the gap filler, I'm the one that helps you to get from here to there. So that is the long and the short of my introduction. I would love it if you introduced yourself in the comments or if you want to shoot me an email or find me on Instagram. I would love that too. I will follow you back, brenda Eckhart, on Instagram. You can just look at my name in the description here, and I hope you have an awesome day and I would love to talk with you more. Follow, subscribe, hit the bell notification so that you never miss a podcast, and I'll talk to you on the next episode. Have a great day.