You know the adage: A picture’s worth a thousand words.  With e-commerce, your clients have a nanosecond to size up your company from the visuals you provide either on your website or in here-to-stay swell of social media. What words are your clients hearing from your company’s images.

Relevant, intelligent, edgy, relaxed, refined, reputable, fresh, powerful, cool, unified, contemporary…

Brand as a word has evolved from the days of Gloria Vanderbilt to a corporate necessity defining the way companies position themselves in the marketplace.  Today, leaders in industry are choosing to invest in commercial brand photography to succinctly represent their unique brand with images that tell their story instantly and honestly.  With powerful commercial photography comes a clear message for your website, business collateral and social media presence.

Doing commercial photojournalism gives me the wonderful opportunity to make impactful impressions for my clients. In the corporate realm, I get to be an interpreter and storyteller with my camera. I interpret companies brand and take images that represent them for their business marketing needs.  I read people.  And people make the company.  That’s why innovative companies like Talent Revolution and Nextvoice247 hired me to hop up their marketing with relevant images.

Brand Cohesion in the words of Chicago visionary Gilbert Melott, founder of Nextvoice247.

fleurdeleigh: photographs are words captured from VoiceBox | Nextvoice247 on Vimeo.

Being a photographer gives me the pleasure of getting to know the people I work with, genuinely.  Commercial photography is getting a whole lot cooler. Working with the cool folks at Nextvoice247 & Talent Revolution rocked and was a great reminded why I LOVE my job.

Click [here] for more images from the Nextvoice247’s photo shoot.

Leigh Caraccioli

@fleurdeleigh

Tweet ingredients & proportional mix

Value: 62%

What makes Twitter rock is that is that value packed tweets prevail. If you need info, help, breaking news, industry trends, food for fodder, a good laugh, or a litmus test of what’s hot right now you can find easily on Twitter.  Use search to pinpoint the info you seek.  I strive to provide humor, information, links, and resources for my followers. How else would they know how to properly burn bacon in 140 characters?  Pause and ask yourself…what value does this tweet provide.

You: 21%

There are people that I follow that bubble over with personality in their tweets.  The key here is to let your personality into your tweets but not to let consume your tweets.  When it’s all about you, you need no followers just a good mirror.  Contrary, there are people I follow that don’t allow enough of themselves into their tweets. While informative they have the vitality of a newspaper.  It’s a balancing act. Giving an extrovert a big megaphone can pose challenges. I struggle with the appropriate tweet mix in this category.  You, your social media presence is a brand.  Be you, be real, but be mindful of your personal brand.

Good manners: 14%

Visualize Twitter as a big cocktail party and employ your good manners. Be conversational, be a good listener, share the good stuff you hear (retweets!!), say please & thank you, and be charming.  Shed the auto DMs as they feel as insincere as a stranger handing out business cards enmasse at random.

Karma: (unmeasurable)

Good Karma matters. Last year I was the victum of a random act of viral niceness.  A “big deal” on Twitter gave me kudos, sent me many handfuls of cool new friends/followers, and eventually became a IRL dear friend. It felt good & I was hooked, thank you @unmarketing. The turning point is when you realize what you can DO for another here. If you take away one element for your tweet formula, make it this:

Make today matter. Make some else’s day. You’ll find it’ll make your own.

Twitter is an ideal arena to do good for others by giving recognition, introducing new followers, giving blogs and websites airplay, elevating and unifying your industry. Voila!!  That’s it.  Hope you weren’t expecting E=MC2.  As always…I love hearing from you. Please leave a comment about your personal formula below.

Leigh

(and for you mathy-mathy people…yes, I am aware

He and the crew at Showit are making my to-do list grow like mad.  1) update website 2) watch tutorials & how to’s 3) add website to facbook 4) create gallery slideshows 5) have Darrin Ballman, my mentor, come over to help with all the the above way to technical stuff. Personally, I have been amazed with their service, innovation (almost like mind reading what tools we need) and commitment to making photography cooler & easier.  Trust me, they are on fire!

Off to play with some of the new ShowIt stuff now.  Here is a slideshow Darrin put together with Showit from Emily & Ben’s wedding we shot together.

Before I could finish the lyrics to silent night, the season passed me by. Had a marvelous time photographing the darling families this season. Eventually, I’ll get around to revising the website to include my most favorites of all the season.  Eventually.  Feels like I just got the tree up…

If you are a family photographer during the holidays you may have felt the blur I did and you’re probably vowing to do it differently next year.  And you’re probably, right now, reaquainting yourself with your own family

More from the Hearn gallery here.