Models and Photographers Tips: Stage Names/Aliases- Marketing and Branding

Disclaimer: I'm NOT a professional; these are my opinions and my opinions only and based on my own experiences in model photography. I am NOT a professional writer, these written format pieces are meant for purely and primarily shared knowledge from my experiences as a model photographer. It is not my intent to have a perfectly written article, if you don't like my writing please report this article to the nearest college to make corrects (or yourselves) and send those corrections at Chris@ChrisAdval.com and I'll make those changes if they do not interfere with the content. My focus is to give the content as soon as possible by any means instead of not giving the content at all (tips). Again I am not a great writer but I get my points across. The following tips are NOT meant for everyone for every situation, take the tips that you know that would work for YOU and anyway you choose. This is only a guide of tips, not strict rules that every or all persons should follow, these tips are meant for serious, business aware and pro-efficient people.

Models and Photographers Tips: Stage Names/Aliases- Marketing and Branding

It is extremely recommended to have an alias stage name for many very logical reasons, especially to models because models are more of a performer and public figure than a photographer.

Reasons to use stages names/aliases…

Privacy & Personal Safety: Having an alias your alias life/career completely separate from your private life, as well brings along more safety to ensure the wrong people do not get hold of your private information.

Marketing and Branding: By having an alias/stage name in many cases it will give you the ability to increase the value of your brand because some of your private life can be separated from your alias’ life. In my opinion personally I don’t feel it’s safe or right to market or branding my personal information to the world and that means using my legal name because once the public knows your legal name they can look up any information about you. Another reason is your legal name may not sound catchy or easy to say or remember which is very important to marketing easy words to ensure people remember them very easily. A strong recommendation when making your own alias/stage name is to make it very, very different than your legal name to make it more difficult for people to guess the name, just like a password.

Privacy & Marketing

Creating an alias stage name for yourself when starting out in model photography (as a model or photographer) will give you some or a lot more privacy control over your private life when working as a photographer or/and model. As well when creating a new alias, you get onto the popular social media websites such as youtube, facebook, twitter, blogs, etc. as I did also talk about in the “Market Yourselves!” article. And when creating a facebook for the alias instead of using your private account on facebook for professional –marketing/advertising- purposes you can keep your private information separate completely on facebook which many models and photographers tend to not understand the value of giving away that personal information to anyone and everyone. Also as I mentioned in the “Market Yourselves!” and other marketing articles (such as “Marketing, Freelance, and Making Cash…”) is you need to interact a lot with fellow fans and people within your industry so connecting with those people from your private account on facebook won’t work out too well.

Branding

When branding be ready to ether yourself design or pay a designer to get an official logo of your brand and if possible trademark that logo and brand. If you can’t afford a designer no problem, but be ready to also get at least some business cards and postcards to promote yourself as much as possible. I highly recommend vistaprints.com to get the business cards, postcards, and many other promotional products. Vistaprints have great prices, quality and diverse amount of promotional products. Another thing similar to vistaprints is having your own online  store that sells your branded items like t-shirts, mugs, and as well other promotional items but they can be sold directly to your audience instead of just buying them in bulk - CafePress.com.

Photographers...

Many photographers use their real legal names because it's true photographers are not in the public eye as much as a model is. A photographer may just be a little different on this subject, but it would be still useful for the same reasons mentioned above especially if you do nude model photography or any other photography when most of society may not like or agree with your work similar to nude photography, political photography, horror photography, etc.

Disagree or Agree to the above content? Make comments here with questions, statements, concerns, etc. or send them to my email at Chris@ChrisAdval.com and I'll respond to them as soon as possible. Thank You and much appreciated! 

Like this article? Did you learn anything, want more? Check out related articles in the following blog series articles... Photographer to Model Tips, Models and Photographers Tips, Model Photographer Tips