The covid-19 pandemic has changed the ways we live and for many people, the pandemic has also changed the way we work. The majority of the world have been forced into lockdown which means that many people have been forced to work from home the past year. When working from home, it can be quite difficult to be just as productive as when working away from home because often you don’t have access to the same tools and equipment at home. Working from home can be quite challenging for the creative industry, especially when it comes to shooting images where the work consists of being at a set with stylists, make-up artists, models and so on. Being at this kind of set often requires the presence of many people and therefore it is not really possible at the moment. Even though there will be some obstacles, it is possible to make remote product photography, you just have to be creative and think outside the box, and this may involve a different strategy than you are used to. Read more to find some tips for content creation at home during lockdown – for example through link building, SEO-content, or making a home-studio for photo-shooting.
Clarify your expectations about the content with colleagues
When creating content from home, it is difficult to create the same professional photos as you would in a studio because at home, you have to act as both a model, a stylist and a make-up artist, and it can be challenging to make it work properly if you are doing it all by yourself. Maybe you are several people that are creating different kinds of content from your separate homes and in this case, it is important that you clarify your expectations for the content so that you don’t waste any time on creating something that your colleagues are not satisfied with. When the expectations are clarified with your colleagues, you could suggest that you make a home-studio and shoot some content at home – and from home. If one of your colleagues has more space or a big empty wall in the living room, this could work as a studio, if you move some of the furniture away. Understandably this requires a bit more planning than using your usual studio at work, but if it could help you to keep creating content despite covid-19, it is worth considering. However, because of covid-19, you cannot be as many people together as you are used to. This means that you have to make a plan that states who will be attending the work at home.
If you are insecure about being covid-19-positive or being too many people together at the same time, you could make a rule that says that everyone has to be tested and have a negative covid-19-test before meeting up for a home-studio-shoot.
Work with whatever resources you have at home
Even though it is important that you clarify your expectations for the content you are creating at home, it is also important to remember that we are going through an unpredictable period of time where it can be difficult to create the same professional content that you are used to. Therefore you shouldn’t get too frustrated if the results don’t end up the way you expected it to be because you are doing the best you can in view of the circumstances, and all you can do is to work with what you have. If your job involves creating content for linkbuilding purposes, it may be more possible to work from home and create the same professional content. Linkbuilding is the process of building links to a site, also known as ‘backlinks’. The goal is usually to increase future search traffic from Google, although links from popular sites can also be a great source of referral traffic. Work involving link building often also involves SEO-content, because link building helps increase visibility on search machines, such as Google. Another advantage that link building offers, is that link building often involves contacting relevant websites and blogs in your industry. In addition, this search often involves promoting something that you have created recently. It can for example be a new guide or a visual graphic. So instead of using a lot of time on creating lots of new visual content, you could instead focus on creating visibility around your current visual content.
Don’t overthink the planning process
In continuation hereof, you have to remember that the working environment is very different from what you usually create content in, and therefore you shouldn’t overthink the planning of the content creation too much. The result will without a doubt be different than what you are used to, but sometimes the best results can happen when they happen unexpectedly. You should not be afraid to improvise with whatever tools and equipment you have in your home. You may experience that the content you are making at home turns out to be very successful. This could happen because viewers can relate to the situation of being at home, and always working from home at the moment, because of the covid-19 situation. It may even create a feeling of identification and transparency from the viewer’s point of view, which could have a more positive effect than you may have expected at first. A solution could be trying to create a work-at-home-atmosphere, and maybe bring some content on your social media page (if you have one), where you show your customers how it is to work from home. This is another way of creating visibility and content on behalf of the organization. In that way, your content matches the every-day-life everything is living.
In the end, we are all in the same boat – so no one will blame you for creating content that is unusual from what you normally create. Instead, you should take advantage of the situation, and create content within the situation we’re standing in and make the best of it.
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