Montana Diaries Creative Business Blog
creative business resources, Shownotes, extra media, and links from the pod!
36: Becoming a successful traveling elopement photographer w/ Emily Kidd
EMILY KIDD PHOTO
Helloooo and welcome back to the Montana Diaries Podcast, I’m Shayna and I’m so freaking stoked you’re here because on today’s episode we have the lovely Emily Kidd, one of my absolute favorite elopement photographers and the host of a podcast serving elopement photographers, The Road Created — Emily has such a heart for serving other business owners, she’s an amazing business woman, and she truly captures her couples perfectly on their adventures. In this episode of the Montana Diaries Podcast, we discuss building a sustainable business, SEO, Pinterest, and navigating social media marketing.
calling all photographers!
join me for my FREE masterclass: HOW TO UPLEVEL YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY BUSINESS USING VIDEO
EVERYTHING you need to know about integrating video into your photography biz without buying new equipment, getting super techy, or wasting your precious time!
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN…
1. Why video is KING online, AKA why YOU should incorporate video into your business strategy
2. The leg up that hybrid shooters have in the photo + video industries and why it IS possible to learn with your existing equipment
3. Action steps you can take RIGHT NOW toward incorporating video content!
EMILY KIDD: Becoming a full time traveling elopement photographer, marketing strategy for travel photography, and what the dream is!
psssttt…
join us in the Facebook group, your space for talking all things creativity + business!
MEET EMILY KIDD
“I’m a destination wedding photographer and adventure-seeker. I love that my camera connects me to people in such a unique way. Photography started out as a creative outlet but quickly turned into a consuming passion. I get to hang out with incredible humans who are crazy about each other while seeing as much of the world as I possibly can. Getting to know my couples by grabbing a drink, exploring, and running around with them is one of the many reasons I love my job. I live for the funny, awkward, and sweet moments that depict the authenticity of your relationship. I want to catch the emotions and the details in a way that makes you pause every time you look at the photo and feel it all over again.”
EMILY KIDD PHOTO
Helloooo and welcome back to the Montana Diaries Podcast, I’m Shayna and I’m so freaking stoked you’re here because on today’s episode we have the lovely Emily Kidd, one of my absolute favorite elopement photographers and the host of a podcast serving elopement photographers, The Road Created — Emily has such a heart for serving other business owners, she’s an amazing business woman, and she truly captures her couples perfectly on their adventures. In this episode of the Montana Diaries Podcast, we discuss building a sustainable business, SEO, Pinterest, and navigating social media marketing.
A chat w/ Emily Kidd, traveling elopement photographer
Emily has always had an interest in both travel and photojournalism, but she wasn’t sure how to monetize these passions until she found elopement articles on Junebug Weddings. Seeing other destination wedding photographers’ work made her realize that the career she wanted was possible. For Emily, traveling and shooting is a lifestyle — she travels full time, planning her trips based on where she books shoots.
The portfolio building stage for Emily included a combination of paid work and workshops in destination locations — we chatted about the importance of portfolio building to build trust with potential clients/being able to showcase what you can do. Emily also mentions how important it is to make travel a part of her brand.
In order to become profitable and sustain her lifestyle as a full time traveling photographer, Emily continued to do styled shoots but also became serious about marketing and SEO. She took two courses on SEO and Pinterest — a combination of strategic blog posts and regular pinning is still the top inquiry driver for her business. Emily even gave me some great advice as far as creating guides to target specific locations goes; this is a great tip for every type of creative business so listen to the pod!
Emily also has an incredible podcast, The Road Created. She explained that she loves the medium of podcasting for her own learning, and I feel the exact same way. Emily is also passionate about helping other photographers reach their goals — she says if she can do it, so can everyone else.
I highly, highly, highly recommend this podcast episode for EVERY photographer with anyyyy interest in traveling! Emily is so full of amazing information and strategies for marketing for a traveling business, I’m so grateful for her honesty and I know this episode will help a ton of people. Be sure to let us know what you think after listening!
hey, photog friend!
If you’ve been wanting to learn videography with the gear you already own, I have a free guide just for you!
21: Pinterest Strategy for Creative Business w/ MY Pinterest manager Teresa Dietrich!
In episode 21, I’m talking with MY pinterest manager Teresa Dietrich about her journey to becoming a Virtual Assistant-turned Pinterest Strategist, her client workflow, and tips for creative entrepreneurs like you to create your own Pinterest workflows. We dive DEEP into the WHY behind Pinterest as well as the how, so be sure to listen alllll the way to the end so you can implement all of this goodness into your own business.
“Instagram is no longer a photo sharing app.”
When head of Instagram Adam Mosseri said that via an IGTV video this summer, I watched as photographers freaked the eff out on photography Facebook groups, on their stories, and yepppp my DMs.
Sooo… I wrote a free guide for YOU, photog friend. This guide is a DEEP DIVE into video marketing for photographers — not only do I provide tangible, actionable strategy for batching video content for YouTube, IGTV, Facebook, TikTok, and Reels, but I take the time to discuss the WHY of it all. Aannndddd this isn’t one of those guides where I throw up information on you that you have no hope of implementing during your busy photo season — I’m a working videographer and photographer, so I freaking get the struggle to implement a content creation strategy. As always, I’m here to meet you where you’re at with what you have
Teresa Dietrich: All about outsourcing Pinterest, the process of working with a VA, and creating a strategy that drives tangible results
psssttt…
join us in the Facebook group, your space for talking all things creativity + business!
Behind the scenes with MY Pinterest Manager!
In episode 21, I’m talking with MY pinterest manager Teresa Dietrich about her journey to becoming a Virtual Assistant-turned Pinterest Strategist, her client workflow, and tips for creative entrepreneurs like you to create your own Pinterest workflows. We dive DEEP into the WHY behind Pinterest as well as the how, so be sure to listen alllll the way to the end so you can implement all of this goodness into your own business.
TERESA DIETRICH
In episode 21, I’m talking with MY pinterest manager Teresa Dietrich about her journey to becoming a Virtual Assistant-turned Pinterest Strategist, her client workflow, and tips for creative entrepreneurs like you to create your own Pinterest workflows. We dive DEEP into the WHY behind Pinterest as well as the how, so be sure to listen alllll the way to the end so you can implement all of this goodness into your own business.
Starting a VA Practice
Teresa and I chatted all about the inception of her VA business — she took us through early client acquisition, to working with those first clients, to finally niching down to Pinterest. Teresa’s personal experience will be helpful to those who want to become a VA as well as business owners looking to work with one for the first time.
The Process of Outsourcing Pinterest
Soooo many creative business owners want to outsource things like Pinterest, but the thought is intimidating for them. Part of that intimidation is that they don’t know how the process works. Here is how it works with Teresa:
Fill out an inquiry form. You’ll talk back and forth about how everything works, and ask any questions you might have.
Schedule a call to make sure you vibe with the person you’re outsourcing tasks to!
Agree on services rendered, payment, and get a contract in place.
Creating a strategy for Pinterest
After the agreement is made, it’s time to create a Pinterest strategy that aligns with your goals for your business. This isn’t about pinning pretty things and increasing vanity metrics that make you feel good — it’s about driving real, tangible results like email list building. Remember: You OWN your email list, but you don’t own social media platforms. Your marketing strategy should really focus on driving the needle forward with things you own.
Pinterest isn’t a social media platform in the way that Instagram and Facebook are — Pinterest is a search engine that people use in order to find inspiration, tools, and things to buy.
When I’m looking at our analytics every month, I’m looking at the email list to see if it’s growing. What Teresa is looking at are analytics related to Pinterest itself like impressions, pins, and clicks to see what is resonating with people so we can make more of that.
5 Steps to DIYing Pinterest if you Aren’t Ready to Outsource
Clearly outline your goals: figure out who you want to find your pins, how you can help them, and where you want them to go.
Keyword Research: Keywords are specific words that show Pinterest what your content is about. Collect keywords based on existing pins that people are searching for.
Creating Pins: Create graphics that encourage people to click!
Schedule out pins: We use Tailwind to schedule out pins in advance so that you’re consistently posting on Pinterest without having to think about it every single day.
Create systems for batching Pinterest-related tasks: Take specific days to block out time to look at your analytics for the last month, create content, and schedule pins.
Work with Teresa
If you’re interested in outsourcing your Pinterest, be sure to check out Teresa on Instagram!
Get a shout out on the pod!
Be sure to rate and review the Montana Diaries podcast on Apple Podcasts to get a shout out on the pod! Just be sure to include your Instagram handle in your review so we can say thank you on a future episode — your reviews help us so much to get more amazing guests, climb in the charts, and continue to serve you!
hey, photog friend!
If you’ve been wanting to learn videography with the gear you already own, I have a free guide just for you!