But, the social media landscape is always evolving, so brands have to stay up to date on what formats and trends are hot on the platform and integrate it into their social media marketing strategy. We sat down with Elisabeth Waller, the owner of Elisabeth Waller Photography & Creative Studio to find out how she uses social media to keep evolving with the trends and how Instagram has become the main driver of new clients for her business. Ready to learn more about Elisabeth’s story and find out her top tips for building a brand on social media? Let’s dive in!
Building a creative business using social media
“I started my business while I was working remotely for an agency. I was pretty new to social media and just learning the ropes, creating social media calendars for a luxury hotel brand with locations in several countries. Plann didn’t exist at that time, so I became very familiar with the other scheduling services that did exist. Social media was and still is the main driver of new clients for my business. It’s how people find me. They usually follow along and get to know me a bit before reaching out to book services.”
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Elisabeth’s favorite part of social media
“My favorite thing about social media is the ability to meet and engage with people all over the world.”
Life on social media before scheduling and auto-posting
“It was pretty stressful. Before Plann, when I had other services that didn’t offer as many features I had to be ‘on’ all of the time. I could schedule posts but always had to check to make sure they went live because there were often problems with auto-posting. I spent a lot more time planning and scheduling posts.”
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Using social media to grow a community
“Social media has been invaluable to my business. I wouldn’t be where I am today without it. Many of my most valued clients are in other parts of the world and without social media, we never would have connected. I also value my colleagues just as much as my clients and every single one of them I’ve met through social media. I think it’s incredibly important to build connections with others in your field and see what they are doing so you can be inspired by them and fueled to keep moving forward and bettering your skills and business.”
The features that first drew Elisabeth to Plann
“The thing that first drew me to Plann was the integration with Cloud, my photography client delivery service. I can directly access my galleries and schedule those images into my Plann calendar. There is no other service like it out there! This saves me so much time. But the reason I stayed with Plann is that every feature has been so thoughtfully built with the user in mind—no matter your skill level with social media marketing. There are so many great little features that all add up to it just being the most user-friendly scheduling service I’ve ever used, like the ‘Best Performing Palette’ in analytics and the inspiration for posts based on industry. Even if you’re skilled at writing captions, sometimes after the 30th caption your brain just goes blank and it’s incredibly helpful to have some inspiration to get things flowing again.”
How Plann has helped Elisabeth’s creative business and clients
“I literally wouldn’t be posting at all if it wasn’t for Plann because I just don’t have the time. I batch out content and then I don’t have to worry about posting every day. I recommend Plann to all of my clients too. They trust my recommendation because they know how thorough I am when it comes to researching the best systems for my business.”
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Elisabeth’s favorite Plann features and functions
“Scheduling Reels has become my favorite feature because I have hated making Reels and have been dragged kicking and screaming into adding them as a regular part of my marketing. Little things like being able to add a cover photo right in Plann are so helpful! The ability to save sets of hashtags that are ready to paste into each post is probably my next favorite feature. The suggested sets of hashtags available by post type or industry save me time and also give me ideas for new sets of hashtags to use.”
Building beautiful aesthetics for brands on Instagram
“Do your branding work and be consistent! Schedule time every week to create content in advance. You’ll be able to preview it all in Plann and move things around as needed. When creating for myself or a client, I design the Feed so there’s a balance of light and dark, a balance of the brand colors, and don’t forget to use plenty of white space too. Make use of the best-performing color palette analytics to see what colors perform best with your audience.”
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Elisabeth’s top tips for making the most of social media in 2022
“Social media will always be a fast-evolving landscape. Plann keeps up and adds new features all the time. You can make the most of social media by reading the Plann newsletters and checking out the educational blog regularly.”
What’s next for Elisabeth’s business?
“I’ve been slowly making the switch to adding strategic brand design and website design as well as brand photography. In the next year, I plan to redo my branding and website. It’s a big change but a really good one. Right now I’m working with some great clients across the country and I’m excited to keep growing that aspect of the business.”
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Ready to supercharge your success on social media?
Looking for an all-in-one content creation suite that allows you to manage your social media channels effortlessly? From mapping out your strategy and designing your graphics to saving plug-and-play hashtag sets, you’ll find everything you need inside Plann. Go on, and redeem your 7-day free trial of Plann Plus. If you don’t like it, keep using Plann for free!
