As a small business owner you are the person that wears all the hats for your business, so it makes sense that you have great software to help you manage these roles.

Here is a list of software that I use nearly everyday in my personal branding photography business and why you need them to:

1. Canva

If you haven't heard of Canva before then you must be living under a rock for sure! This graphic design software revolutionised small business and at the click of a button has given us access to graphic design features previously only accessible by professionals. 

We can create social media posts, banners, checklists, ebooks even logos!

You can create your own designs from scratch or access thousands of templates for every occasion. I love how flexible it is in customising all the elements of the templates which is why I choose Canva to create my branding Photographer templates.

Everything is already prewritten for you specifically for branding photography clients and what they need to know about their shoot. You just insert your own images, insert your own branding colours and away you go. 

2. Studio Ninja

This is my Client Management System and would be totally lost without it. This is were I have my client details, invoicing, questionnaires, contracts and emails. I have set up workflows that emails get sent automatically on set dates and I don't need to think about it.

If you wanted to check it out for your own business then you can use this code to get 20% off your subscription - use promo code: AHNJ442756K6Y2. 

3. Quickbooks

This is were the serious accounting stuff happens. I love that it is integrated into Studio Ninja and all my invoices and payments automatically populate in Quickbooks.

All I need to do is enter my up to date expenses to get an accurate outcome on my profits at any time. It's also really easy to generate the required reports at the end of the financial year for tax time.

4. Google Business Profile - previously known as Google my Business

This is where I build my profile for customers searching on google, and an essential SEO tool for your business. I have entered my information, location and services, which are all really important when someone is searching for you on Google.

I also frequently update posts, upload images and write articles to let google how that my account is active, and clients can see my work while still on google.

This is also were I send a link to get my clients to write reviews and testimonials. The reviews show up as a rating on Google which provides very valuable social proof helps clients choose me for their photographer. 

5. Adobe Creative Cloud

I am assuming that every photographer is already using Adobe and I should really be needing to talk about this one too much😆. Personally I am a lightroom user but do dabble in photoshop for the more advanced edits. 

6. Inshot

This is a great video editing tool that I use for creating reels and tiktoks. I am still learning the ropes in this area but I find Inshot really intuitive and easy to use. I like the music selection they have on there aswel. 

7. Instagram

This social media platform is great for photographers! We are such a visual industry and we already have soo much content I think we are one of the easiest professions to post about and promote.

Social media is also one of the reasons that we have a job as branding photographers right!

Not only do I use Insta to generate leads but also use it to connect with other business owners and develop support networks for being a small business. Because let's face it, it can get tough running your own business and sometimes you just need to know that other people are going through the same thing as you.

8. Planoly

This is an Instagram scheduling tool that I can not live without. Scheduling my posts was a life saver for me. Before I was just posting on the fly and then  forgetting, and then not posting.

So know I sit and schedule about a months worth of feed content in about a few hours. I preset all of the posting times so it even posts automatically without me doing anything. Such a time saver!

Although as photographers we have a lot of images to create content, sometimes we can struggle for the caption ideas. Which is why I created a couple of bundles of social media captions for other branding photographers. You literally just cut and paste into your own feed - check it out here if you are interested in saving more time on your socials😊 

Ok, so that's my list! Is there anything on there that you don't use and found helpful? Or maybe you have something you use but I don't? I would love to hear from you!

PS If you were interested  in saving time with creating your own Canva products these templates might interest you ...