Tips on Creating Visually Striking Content
There’s an art to creating a visually stunning still life for social media. Having a good, working camera is vital, but it takes more than just a good camera to capture the perfect picture showcasing nails, hair, and skin. Lighting and the background color can make the object you’re focusing on stand out.
Color is very subjective. While some people might prefer the energizing hues of red, others drawn to soft and moody blue tones might find reds and oranges jarring. Using a neutral background could help colorful nails and hair stand out in the content, and that’s what you’re selling: your services.
Whether you’re a nail technician, hair stylist, barber, or esthetician, you’ll produce plenty of content every day you go to work. Every time you have a client, you have a chance to produce content. You just need to be organized and equipped with the right tools to get the job done effectively.
Growing a following should be meaningful. Getting a lot of likes naturally feels validating, but the important thing is getting the attention of future and current clients. Other people will take you seriously if you’re serious and passionate about what you do. These days, getting customer engagement, shares, and saves is more valuable.
Amy Le’s Instagram grid is artfully composed. Her nail art is clean and solid, with the precision of one of the top nail art masters. She posts colorful, ornate, and playful manicures against a white, shadowy backdrop for each post, giving the composition an artistic flair while letting the colors on the manicure stand out.
Attribution: @amyle.nails
To take advantage of natural lighting, Julia McAlee poses her clients in front of this oval-patterned wall. The neutral wall color doesn’t detract attention from the client’s freshly cut, colored, and styled hair.
Attribution: @looksbyjulia
Holistic esthetician Jordan LaFragola created an artisanal plant-based skincare oil, Flora Mirabilis. Her Instagram is an impeccably curated grid of well-lit, professionally photographed facials, with the beautiful still life of her skin product sprinkled in. LaFragola offers 90-minute relaxing facials in a private LA-based studio built by Charlie Chaplin; the setting is airy and serene, with a biophilic-inspired design.
Attribution: @floramirabilis
Though each beauty influencer has different approaches to creating content, they each have something in common: consistency, a good eye for composition, and the images are captured beautifully for the gram.
Amy Le has a natural knack for capturing hand poses, Julia McAlee feels more off the cuff, and Jordan LaFragola has strategically curated content that appears to be created by a professional marketing team.
The most important thing is to have photos that capture your work in the best light and angle. Ensure your photos are in focus and skip on using filters to showcase your professional work. Save images on Instagram that resonate with you or that you find visually appealing and memorable. Take note of what you like and how you can use those inspirations to create your own visually stunning styles. If you photograph clients, then asking permission to post their faces on your feed is always considerate.
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