Tips for Taking Great Phone Pics

5 Easy Tips for Taking Great Photos with Your Mobile Phone

Great images are a vital tool for marketing your direct sales or party plan business online.

Facebook’s algorithm favors quality, unique images. Have you noticed how hardly anybody notices the images you post that are produced by your company? That’s because hundreds, if not thousands, of other consultants have already shared them.

Images that you create yourself will have a much higher impact and be seen by far more people on your business page or your groups and events. The better quality your image is, the better your reach will be.

And it isn’t hard to improve your photos with a few tweaks. And you don’t need professional gear – your smartphone or iPhone will be perfect!

Lightbox

Lighting is very important in photography. One the best ‘hacks’ I’ve found is to use a “light box” when I’m taking photos of my products. A light box traditionally provides even lighting and a solid background color. In my case I use the back of a wall planner. It’s glossy white and the perfect size to provide that clean white background.

I make sure to open the blinds to get the maximum of natural light and I turn on my overhead light (even during the day – but be careful of shadows) . And by putting my colorful products on this beautiful glossy white background, they pop in my photos.

You can use any glossy white cardboard – but I discovered my unused wall planner had the perfect backing .

Selfies

If you take photos of make-up or jewelry or outfits, consider investing in a ring light and mini tripod. A ring light sits around your phone camera and lights up your face beautifully without harsh shadows. You can get ring lights in a variety of price brackets, but check out this budget version on Amazon!

A tripod will help you to keep your phone steady when you take photos. Another option is a selfie-stick for shots from different angles. This Bluetooth selfie stick transforms into a tripod – the perfect budget option.

Flat-Lays

An example of a flat lay photo. — An example of a summer-themed flat lay photo.

If you really want your images to stand out, jump on the ‘flat lay’ trend. Flat lays are photos of a bunch of objects taken from above.

A good flat lay uses a clean background, not too many objects and has some space between the objects.

Think of a theme for your photos. For example if you have a beauty product with citrus as an ingredient you can use oranges or lemons. Grab a good looking lemon or orange, perhaps some green leaves from your garden, and of course the product (s). Now don’t go putting strawberries in the photo – stick to your citrus theme!

Then create yourself a little still-life that looks good from above – you’ll have to lay bottles flat for example – and make sure you have enough natural light without harsh shadows.

Now you’re ready to take some photos & done!

A clever trick to make your flat lays look amazing is to use marble gloss contact for your background.

Technical Tips

Exposure example — The exposure circle tells the camera how to adjust for the lighting conditions. In the top photo, the camera is adjusting for the bright outside light, in the bottom photo the circle is on the Christmas cards so the camera knows to adjust for the object!

Use natural light whenever possible. You can boost it with your overhead lights or yourflash. Avoid taking photographs only lit by flash, you’ll get harsh shadows. When you use flash during the day it can help to soften some of the shadows created by your light source.
Do not zoom in. Ever. The zoom on many smartphones is not like a camera lens, it’s a digital trick and reduces the quality of your images. Instead get closer to your subject or crop it later (in Canva for example or your favorite photo app).
Adjust the exposure. It’s as easy as tapping your screen or dragging the exposure square or circle over to the object you want to photograph.

Play with Color

A fun way to make your products stand out is to turn everything in your image to black and white except for the product. The Color Touch Effects app on Android or Color Pop Effects for iOS will do the job for you for free.

Another option is to create a scene or still life of products all in one color. You can also go the other way and create a rainbow of color options.

Images are such a great way to express your personality and capture your products and business in a new way.

We’d love to see what you’ve been up to with your smartphone, show your results in the Direct Sales Inspiration Facebook page.

Learn how to rock your online marketing

Learn how to be active and sell on Facebook without annoying people and without spamming anybody – it’s called attraction marketing.

Learn how to maximize your Facebook Business Page, how to build an active Facebook Group and how to work with the Facebook algorithm.

Learn about the magic of video and how to do it well and learn all about avatars and how to get one for free.

Each Module contains a video presentation in which Christine talks you through the topic. Each presentation is filled with examples, explanations of why it works and tips. You’ll also get plenty of downloadables and printables to use immediately in your direct sales business.

Check out the Attraction Marketing Course

2 Tips for Your Launch

Have you started your direct sales journey? Or are you resuming your journey after a break?

I’ve got 2 tips for you on (re-) launching your business and common mistakes that you want to avoid.

And if you’re a leader, you might consider teaching this strategies to your newbies, just like I do.

The first tip relates to how to promote your new adventure (and how not to do it) and the second tip is about how you get your very first parties filled.

DO: Shout it from the rooftops!
You’ll want to announce your new business online. You’ll want a business Facebook page, Instagram account, Twitter account…whichever social media is ‘home’ for you.

But your new business account is pretty empty when you first start out. So, start with announcing your new adventure on your personal social media profiles.

A really great way to grab people’s attention and show your enthusiasm for your new business is by doing a Facebook /Instagram Live of unboxing your starter kit. It won’t take long and isn’t difficult, but it’s a very effective way to show how excited you are and what kind of products you’ll be selling.

You can then follow up with a link to your business page, of course!

DON’T: Spam your friends
A common mistake is that new consultants announce in a text status update that they’ve joined a direct sales business. Boring. Then they’ll add something like “contact me if you want to book a party”. That’s not very interesting, enthusiastic, or personal. It also just doesn’t work.

To make matters worse, they’ll then spam their personal feed with endless product photos. And they wonder why nobody is buying or booking except their Mum (bless Mum!)

Avoid this pitfall by reading this article on how to market online without being spammy, and then grab this free list of 50 social media post ideas. For bonus points, set-up an exclusive group for customers so you can start your social media marketing properly.

Launching your direct selling business? Here's how to announce it properly and how to get those first parties. #DirectSales #PartyPlan

DO: Set party dates for two personal parties
Set two dates within 3 days of each other (for example a Thursday night and a Saturday afternoon in the same week). By hosting your own two parties, you can take advantage of any host rewards and expand your kit quickly. It will also help you to achieve any starter incentives, if your company offers any.

How you approach the invitation can make a huge difference in the start of your business.

Here’s the secret: your number one aim when talking to family and friends is to get hosts. Filling your own two parties is secondary.

This is how you approach it:

Ask for help. Tell them how excited you are about your new business but that you really need their help to get the business started.

Tell them you’re looking for 2 parties in the next few weeks. (If you can secure more than 2 bookings from your friends and family, that’s fantastic but aim for at least 2).

Try to get your bookings within the first three to four weeks so you can build momentum and confidence quickly.

Anybody who isn’t interested in hosting their own party can be invited to one of your two parties. This is why you have your dates set already: you want this to be a smooth conversation where you ask them to host a party for you but you have a backup option where they can help you by being a guest at one of your parties. And you have 2 dates so that they’re more likely to be able to attend one of them!

Now, if they can’t host a party or attend your party as a guest, ask them if you can send them a catalog.

DON’T Start with the catalog option
Many new consultants are a bit nervous at first and make the mistake of starting the conversation by offering their catalog and then try to “upsell” to hosting a party.

But it’s much more effective to start with the biggest ask of hosting a party for you, then you can “downgrade” to the guest option and finally the catalog option.

Most people will want to help you and they don’t like saying “no” to you. They’re bound to say “yes” to at least one of your offers! But if you’ve already offered them the easy option of the catalog and they said “yes” to that, they won’t feel they need to say “yes” to anything else you’re offering them!

There are many more tips and ideas for new consultants that I could share, but I don’t want to overwhelm you.

If you implement the two tips above (and avoid the pitfalls) you’ll make a great start of it. Then continue to learn and grow!

If you want to continue reading today, I recommend these 3 articles:

Social Media Post Ideas

50 Social Media Post Ideas

Wondering what to post on your business social media page today? We’ve got you covered with 50 (!) ideas that you can use.

Our checklist contains ideas for direct sellers that practice attraction marketing (a way of marketing on social media without being spammy) and can be used again and again.

The aim of this list is to help you make your business pages unique and interesting.

Boooooring Facebook Pages

I see so many direct sales pages that are boring because they only contain the company’s branded content and only talk about the company or the products.

These types of pages don’t get much attention. Not only is it not interesting for fans or followers, but Facebook’s algorithm won’t rate them highly either. So these pages get buried at the bottom of the feed, if shown at all.

What is the Facebook algorithm?

An algorithm is a formula or set of steps to achieve something or solve a problem. In Facebook, the algorithm decides what to show you in your newsfeed and in which order. Everybody’s newsfeed is different because the algorithm takes your own behavior as well as other bits of information into account.

So when you open Facebook, the algorithm looks at all the stories posted by your friends and by the pages that you follow. The algorithm then looks at things like who posted the story and how often they publish, any negative feedback on that author, what time it is now, what device you’re on, what engagement stories already have (the more engagement they have the more likely it is that you’ll see it in your feed), if a friend has already commented, and much more.

The Facebook algorithm uses all that information to make some predictions, such as how likely you are to click on a story, watch a video, share a story, etc. This helps the algorithm decide what to show you in your newsfeed and in what order.

How do you get the algorithm to like you? There are some general recommendations:

Complete your Facebook profile.
Publish regularly.
Create content likely to elicit positive feedback from your audience (positive comments, likes, or reactions. Reactions affect post ranking slightly more than likes). But do not ask for shares or likes – this is frowned upon by the algorithm.
When you want to post a video use Facebook Live or upload videos to Facebook directly instead of linking to YouTube.
Publish content that promotes engagement and an investment of time from your audience (video content is great for that).
Post content that’s informative and shareable.

Posts with Personality

Facebook, and most importantly your fans, like to see real content.

Content with personality, content that’s interesting, content with useful resources or tips, content that’s unique.

This is why you want to create your own unique images and not just re-use the company’s branded content. Facebook will rank images that are used by lots of people lower than unique content.

And when you have plenty of interesting and unique content on your business page, you’re ranked well by Facebook. When that happens, Facebook is more likely to show your followers any branded content when you do share a company video or image.

9-1-1

A handy rule of thumb for what to post is the “9-1-1” rule. Out of every 11 posts, you post 9 unique and interesting bits of content, one promotional post (perhaps provided by your company) and one personal post.

The personal post will give your fans an insight into who you are, why you do what you do, and an insight to your life (eg. family, study, other work, hobbies, interests, talents, pets). This helps your fans and customers to relate to you as a person. You are, after all, in the relationship business. People buy from you, not from a faceless company.

The downloadable list provides you with ideas for each post type.

I view my Facebook business page as a Yellow Pages advertisement for the 21st century. It’s important to stand out from the crowd, to be unique, and to be authentically you. When you do that, you will attract your ideal customers and fans and build on the relationships you already have.

I generate quite a lot of new and repeat business from my Facebook page. If you follow these tips and use the downloadable list to get you started, you can too!

Downloadable: 50 Social Media Post Ideas

If you want to learn more about how to rock your Facebook business pages and your Facebook groups, check out the Attraction Marketing Course.

In the course you’ll learn how to maximize your business page and groups, how to create your own online brand, how to create videos and images for social media, and you’ll learn about avatars.

If you believe that you could make better use of social media in your direct sales business, this is the course for you!

Check What’s In the Course

Attraction Marketing

How do you market your direct sales biz online without being salesy or spammy…?

The answer: Attraction Marketing.

To explain what attraction marketing is and how to do it, I’ve interviewed Rochelle Nicole.

In the interview Rochelle will take us behind the scenes on her actual Facebook business page. She explains how she is using attraction marketing to boost her direct sales business.

Rochelle has built a direct selling empire online. She’s done this by branding herself on social media in the small pockets of time in between living her life and working an intense full-time job.

She’s generated a massive following on social media that she’s leveraging into her business.

I particularly love her advice for Do’s and Don’ts on Social Media and the 10-4-1 rule.

Check out my interview with Rochelle Nicole in the video below and then grab the FREE Attraction Marketing Planner to help you with your own Facebook business page!

Let us know where to send the Attraction Marketing Planner and we’ll send it to you immediately!

Learn how to rock your attraction marketing

Learn how to be active and selling on Facebook without annoying people and without spamming anybody.

Learn how to build an active Facebook Group.

Learn about the magic of video and how to do it well.

Check out the Attraction Marketing Course