How to Shoot and Plan Aesthetic Content for Social Media

hi everyone my name is Jesse and welcome back to another episode of table talk a video podcast Series where we sit down

at my dining room table and chat about all things life [Music]

together firstly I'd like to say thank you so much for 5,000 subbies and 2,000 followers on Instagram oh my gosh if you

found me from my how to become an influencer 20124 video Welcome welcome take a seat take a seat while I don't

want this video podcast series to be exclusively about influencing and influencer marketing you guys have asked

so many questions on my last video that I decided that I do need to create a few more videos surrounding this topic so

pull out your phones and cameras because today I'm going to be teaching you guys how to shoot aesthetic content plan your

feed and build your own personal social media brand step one decide on your aesthetic I think that the easiest way

to choose your aesthetic is to ask yourself a very simple question are you a maximalist or minimalist minimalist

creators tend to have cleancut editing if they're using audio it's going to be soothing relaxing music the pacing of

their videos may be slower and they'll tend to lean towards more beige or neutral toned feeds maximalist creators

are the complete opposite they're editing will be fast-paced think funny memes the music will tend to be more

upbeat and they'll use more sound effects in their videos maximalist creators will always gravitate towards a

more colorful feed personally for me I lean more towards maximalism so my online Persona is going to have a lot of

fun editing a lot of colors and a whole lot of yapping so after breaking down these two different Aesthetics which one

would you guys say that you lean more towards this is something that you need to ask yourself because it helps you

establish your overall brand identity and it gives you some form of Direction when shooting and planning your content

step two create a mood board now that you've established the overall brand aesthetic that you're going for let's

talk about how we're going to implement that aesthetic into your specific needs so remember in the last episode where I

told you guys to choose three different niches that you're going to cover those three niches will be the pillars and

foundation and creating your content strategy the key to building any brand or executing any creative shot is to

create a mood board a mood board will not only act as a guide when shooting your content but it'll also help you

overall visualize what you want your brand to look like your brand social media strategy will obviously shift

dependent on what social media platform that you're using but the overall look and feel of your brand should be

consistent across all Platforms in terms of your Instagram aesthetic specifically I'm going to let you guys in on a little

trick that I did when I was establishing my Instagram feed go on Pinterest and search aesthetic Instagram feed it

sounds so simple but truly use the resources that you have once you search this term in Pinterest it will provide

you with a plethora of different Instagram feed Aesthetics that you can pick and choose from I want you to pin

your favorite feeds that inspire you the most or feeds that you strive to curate one day and then once you have

everything pinned and saved in your own personal folder you can then use that to look back on and reference when you plan

your feed and if you need a feed example for a more specific Niche then just add the word to your search so aesthetic

fashion account aesthetic Beauty account aesthetic lifestyle photography you name it Pinterest will have it but I want you

to use Pinterest as your mood board moving forward when creating content and planning it plus this will not only

serve as your mood board inspiration but it will also help you with your pose and product shot inspiration as well step

three shooting aesthetic content before moving into the apartment that I live in now I used to feel so insecure about not

having the most aesthetic home or environment to shoot in I just wanted to preface this portion of the video by

saying that whether it's your environment or your lack of super nice equipment do not let any of that stop

you from creating content they're not something that you necessarily need to create good content they're just a bonus

and they're something that you can invest in in the long term once you make it big as a content creator the golden

rule of social media is that the camera only sees what you allow it to see it does sound super superficial and I

always say that social media is fake because of this reason everything on social media is curated so if you're

going to invest in anything then I would advise for people starting out to invest in some photo backdrops and some props

to start shooting aesthetic content with you can get a bundle of photo backdrops from Amazon for around $ 20 to $30 you

can Thrift fake plants or Thrift really nice bowls to practice shooting product with you don't need to spend a lot of

money at all when you're first starting out on content creation Now I'm not saying that you can't manifest or work

hard towards having your dream home or having the ideal equipment that you would like to have but again those are

all just long-term Investments and nothing that you need to start your content creation Journey now if you want

to get started in influencing content creation whatever it is start today start small and be very mindful of what

you're investing your money in we're going to take a quick little intermission just real quick stay with

me I thought it would be interesting to dive into some influencer case studies I genuinely feel like I'm a professor in

influencer marketing right now people wanting to become an influencer a content creator whatever it is I think

it's important to analyze obviously the market and the industry that you're getting yourself into using our two

broader umbrella terms again we are going to compare and contrast the filming and editing styles of

influencers that I would categorize under the maximalist aesthetic or the minimalist aesthetic so starting with

fashion influencers I chose cressel Lim for a minimalist style and Nava Rose for a maximalist style clearly you see Nava

has a lot of colors a lot of fun DIY thrifted pieces that she works with whereas cressel them has a lot of beige

neutral tone simplistic outfits moving on to Beauty influencers I chose glow with Ava and Nicole consilio for the

minimalist versus maximalist style glow with AA is very radiant and subtle and natural her editing Style again is very

clean cut whereas Nicole is Glam she's dramatic she's flashy like all in the best ways possible though obviously when

choosing your aesthetic it's important to remember you don't need to be like anyone else people will naturally

gravitate towards your own twist on each aesthetic for lifestyle I chose Michelle Choy for minimalistic and Lynn trong for

maximal listic maximal style you get what I'm trying to say Michelle Choy I'm pretty sure she invented the living at

home Diaries check me on that she went viral for her simple cleancut minimalistic editing it's very wholesome

whereas Lynn's editing is very energetic expressive colorful you will see a lot of graphic overlays a lot of handdrawn

overlays not only in her YouTube videos but also her Instagram as well for Foodies you guys probably know who I'm

going to choose for minimalistic but we have Miss Nara Smith for minimalistic her name is I think her name name is

teeny teki Nikki I feel like that that one person who was pronouncing everyone's names wrong at Thomas

Jefferson's college graduation Alisa Bishop oh goodness I'm so sorry I will

put her handle here if you look at either of their Tik Tok accounts you know what I'm talking about Nara Smith

her voice is very soothing very simple editing whereas going pronounce your name wrong again I'm so sorry love but

whereas with her account it's not that her voice isn't soothing but the way she carries herself is just more bold how

she walks you through her recipes it's very fast-paced I think that by watching and researching and taking notes of

influencers or even brands that are already well established you can then incorporate those different shooting and

editing Styles into your own personal brand aesthetic this video obviously focuses on influencer marketing but even

if you were to look at this from a brand perspective you could even use companies within this case study of minimalistic

versus maximalist Aesthetics a great example of that would be Road and glow recipe Road obviously being your

minimalistic style all of the images are clean minimalist fresh whereas glow recipe it's very fun it's vibrant like

look at the two feeds just look at the two feeds both skincare brands have amassed a similar following but both

Aesthetics and target market are completely different so what I now want you to do is comment below your own

example of a minimalistic versus maximalist brand or influencer just to train that aesthetic eye of yours to

really recognize these themes and trends when creating content by learning to distinguish these two Aesthetics you

will then Master them and mold your own type of aesthetic step four is editing and building your aesthetic feed all

righty so you understand your aesthetic you shot your content and now it's time to Buckle in and edit and plan your

content the trick to building an aesthetic feed is to pick a filter or colorway that you like best and stick

with it whereas for videos I like to use the splice app to edit together my short firm videos for photos I like to use the

Tesa app now I used to be a visco girlly but then visco started charging for my favorite filter so I had to make a

switch because that was criminal criminal of them to start charging for filters so I'm going to live edit a

photo for you guys to show you what it is exactly I do when editing my Instagram photo so for me I like to use

the cocoa flow tone and set it to about 80% could do 100 there's nothing wrong with that but for some reason I don't

like my photos to look too too filtered so a solid 80 is the sweet spot for me I like this filter personally because it

gives you a Warm Neutral tone to the photo whether you want something warm toned cool tone bunch of different

styles that you can choose from now we go to hsl which stands for Hue saturation l luminance and I like to go

to each color and start color correcting you kind of just do this based on however you please really I don't like

how pale I look when I put this filter on so I usually adjust the yellow and orange colorways give myself a little

bit extra color that the filter washes away this is everything that I like to do by the way like you can obviously

edit based off of how you see fit but the main objective is to choose one filter and stick with that filter so if

I'm choosing cocoa flow I'm using cocoa flow for all of my photos you want to create a cohesive feed and the easiest

way to do that is to stick with one filter after I color correct and put the filter on I always like to adjust the

brightness to about -3 and then I'll adjust the highlights and shadows as needed I would say that that's done I

think that the greatest thing about Tesa is that once you create an editing style that you really like you can then save

it as a collection to save it as a collection you click on this little marker right here save new flow you can

name it whatever you'd like so we'll just name this IG test for the time being all you need to do whenever you

take new pictures now you could click on your collections Tab and then I put IG test right here so I just click on that

let's do it and it applies everything that I just did in one click I love this feature it makes editing photos so much

faster and it saves me so much time when it comes to editing my Instagram photos then you upload your photo into penoli

so you can see here I already have it uploaded because this is a post that I will eventually put up and I will

literally sit in the penoli app for around 30 minutes just planning my feed it sounds a little bit much cuz it's

just Instagram who cares but this is why social media management is a full-time job guys you need to be able to create

an aesthetic feed that pertains to people's eyes that make them want to click that follow button so I don't like

to put products next to each other if you are just like a faceless account that only shows products that's

completely fine do that for me someone who has several different niches I like to put it so that my feed shows a

product like every other photo say we have two fashion photos and then a product photo boom another trick to

planning your feed is to look at the overall colors of your feed so for instance here I have a little Greenery

again with putting products next to each other you also don't want to put like colors right next to to each other you

kind of want to put it diagonally at least for what I like to do I hope that kind of makes sense in terms of looking

at the background of your photos playing with like colors together and trying to diversify the different types of content

that you have step five apps and equipment I previously mentioned a few apps like Tesa to edit my photos splice

to edit my videos and penoli to plan my Instagram feed but I just wanted to in this portion give you guys a quick list

and rundown of all the apps and equipment I use another app that I use for Instagram is also airbrush and I use

this for when I have a blemish on my face or when my under eye bags are just a little too much especially my under

eye bags can look so freaking bad in certain lighting and I have to get rid of those I can't have you people knowing

that I'm an overthinking creative that suffers from insomnia for YouTube I use Adobe Premiere Pro to edit all of my

videos and then I use canva to edit my thumbnails I used to use Photoshop but Photoshop is so much more timec

consuming for me and canva makes it more seamless all of the apps that I previously mentioned are in fact free

with an app purchases you of course don't have to use the same apps or equipment that I use I'm just sharing

with you guys what I use to help you guys out but use whatever you feel comfortable using if you test another

app and you end up liking it more if you have another piece of equipment that you like more by all means do not listen to

me 1,000% use whatever makes you feel most comfortable moving on to equipment I shoot all of my videos and photos

using my iPhone 11 I really should upgrade my phone because I've had this since college but my first big girl

investment will be in getting a new laptop and getting a new camera for YouTube for YouTube right now I use my

Canon g7x Mark 2 to film all of my YouTube videos however I will say that for brands that pay me to collab for

social media I will also use my Canon j7x to shoot photos with and to shoot videos with and that's only if I'm

getting paid for my time if you know what I'm saying all of the equipment that I mentioned for influencing or for

my YouTube channel will be listed in my Amazon shop at the link in the description below step number six

practice makes perfect with anything in life practice makes perfect but you should strive for Progress not

Perfection the more you pick up your camera set up your filming space you shoot and you edit and post your content

the better you'll get at it and the more confident you'll feel about your own work remember it's all about the journey

not the destination and you'll never know what the destination looks like if you never start on your journey today so

start your content creation Journey now I sincerely hope that this video was able to help all of you who are asking

me how to shoot and plan aesthetic content I try to be as beginner friendly as possible but of course if I missed

anything then feel free to just comment below and I will be sure to answer as many of your questions as possible again

be sure to check out my Amazon shop for any of the equipment that I've listed if you're interested in using the same

equipment that I use whether you're a beginner or a seasoned Creator I sincerely appreciate all of the love and

support that my channel has been receiving if you haven't already be sure to click that subscribe button click

that like button and stay tuned for more table talk episodes where we talk about anything and everything in life and with

that I will see you all in my next video bye