July 15, 2021

NSFW Pod 016 - Laetitia

NSFW Pod 016 - Laetitia

In this episode, we interview Laetita Bouffard-Roupe.  Laetitia is a ballet dancer and published, international nude art model.
We sat down and discussed how to use social media to help build a community and elevate your career.  The discussions are applicable to photographers, models and really anyone that needs to rely on social media.

Photo credit - @kai.york.official on IG

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In this episode, we interview Laetita Bouffard-Roupe.  Laetitia is a ballet dancer and published, international nude art model.

We sat down and discussed how to use social media to help build a community and elevate your career.  The discussions are applicable to photographers, models and really anyone that needs to rely on social media.

Laetitia can be found online at:

Website - https://laetitiamodel.com/home/
Instagram - laetitia_channel_model

Help us reach new listeners by rating us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite place you get podcasts!  Visit us at https://www.thensfwphotographypodcast.com/

Transcript

Transcript is provided by AI via Descript.  There are definitely errors, and this transcript should not be taken as the definitive record.  The Audio is the definitive record.  This transcript is provided for accessibility and SEO optimization.

NSFW16_Laetitia 

[00:00:00] Matthew Holliday: Good day, everyone. And welcome back to the not safe for work photography podcast. Today, we are interviewing Leticia . How are you doing today? Laetitia? 

[00:00:19] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: I'm great. Thank you for having me.  

[00:00:22] Matthew Holliday: Oh, I'm excited. Social media is good. I, I. I'm terrible at social media. So this one's going to be very interesting for me. Would you like to introduce. 

[00:00:31] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Sure. My name is Laetitia. I come from France. I am at the moment based in Spain and I started my, my training as an artist when I was three years old with. It's done That professionally until the age of 20 don't want and I converted stopped ballet and moved into circus. I've performed over to word of the circus artists that specialized in REL hoop and acrobatics. 

And then, yeah, I'm also a yoga teacher trainer and I'm older as you know, 

[00:01:17] Matthew Holliday: That is so much stuff. So how long did you spend working in circuses? That's super interesting. I don't think I've heard that as a background yet. 

[00:01:26] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Yeah, well from. Yes, 17 years I've performed a robotics. I'm also part of septus LA as a special events artist. And I, I want her to born with down national circus competition. So yeah. 

[00:01:51] Matthew Holliday: So it sounds like pretty much all the work you've done has really been focused on making art with your body and the physicality of it. 

[00:02:00] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: That's right. So it started with ballet mostly. Yeah, all my childhood and the beginning of one was ballet only. And then I added acrobatic to it. 

and then do yoga. And now I'm super happy that in my photography, I get to use over my skills. To, to demonstrate all of that. 

[00:02:24] Matthew Holliday: I assume that two-year background, the large part of the modeling you do is very focused in that physical. 

[00:02:31] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Yeah, that's right. Because the photographers are really interested in my, my Bali skills and my acrobatic skills. So that's yeah. Most of my other yoga Bardo. So it's very interesting for the posing. 

[00:02:46] Matthew Holliday: So how long have you been working as a model then? And are you still doing the other stuff? The ballet and the circus. Are you mostly focused on modeling and yoga now? 

[00:02:56] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: So now exactly, actually, no, we are in June and it's three years. I had my first professional photo shoot, which was a new art shoot in Porto Portugal with Andre burrito. And that was three years ago. Yeah, until the COVID. Yes, I was still performing as an Acrobat in Europe. But then my show closed down. 

So at the moment I'm really focusing on me on the modeling and yes, I do still teach a yoga mainly online.  

[00:03:34] Matthew Holliday: That makes sense. COVID certainly been difficult for a lot of people. How would you compare modeling to the difficulty and the physicality of working as a dancer and as a Acrobat, 

[00:03:51] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: I would say but not performing is way harder than modeling physically, even either though modeling is quite it's quite challenging physically, when you, you do ballet and acrobatics photo, photo-shoots like that, it's a different kind of is different because in photos you need to hold poses, maintain them for quite an extended time where when you perform your through. 

And it's more of a, of a cardio because of performance, like what I used, I even doing, it's just like a monotone, it's like a five minute of really intensive and physicality where the photo-shoot is it's X hours. And we have breaks and, you know, like, is it, it's just a different pace of work. So it impacts the body different.  

[00:04:44] Matthew Holliday: Of course. So when we were arranging this interview, you said you specifically wanted to discuss social media as that's a topic of specific interest for you. I noticed that you have. Of avenues reaching out to followers, going from your Instagram to your link site, you have, you know, your website, you've got Facebook, you've got telegram, you've got email, Twitter, Instagram, that's a, does each avenue represent a different part of your fan base? 

[00:05:11] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Well, my main hub is, is Instagram. That's where I started my, my social media as a model. But I think, I think it's great to be visible on every platform. When it comes to branding I mean you need to just be everywhere, right? So you can reach more people. And that's my idea. So that's why I opened a Facebook account and I opened that the Twitter too. 

So people could reach me because not everybody's on Instagram. There are some people which like Facebook, more, some people like Twitter, more. So, so yeah, just to give you options.  

[00:05:52] Matthew Holliday: I recently started moving the podcast onto YouTube because I heard on another podcast where they said that they found, they had originally assumed that they'd be cannibalizing their podcast followers if they were on YouTube, but they found they had a completely different audience on YouTube and it wasn't the same. 

So by moving to the new venue, rather than cannibalizing their existing followers, they just added on. Would you agree with that overall? Do you think for the models as well? I know that's true podcast, but. 

[00:06:21] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Yeah. I mean, I do have a YouTube channel too. But I've done it more as as as a way for Google to, to find me because it's good to be on, on, on YouTube for, for, I'll go it for the algorithm of Google. But. 

Yeah, I mean, being on YouTube now, it's like a must, I guess everybody's. 

[00:06:45] Matthew Holliday: Yeah, that's interesting. You mentioned the Google algorithm. As finding people, finding you is definitely really important and write any questions down for this. So if you'd rather hold off on this and think about it for a little bit, we can, but do you have any advice for people trying to make sure that Google can find them? 

[00:07:05] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Yeah, well, that's the first one is just be everywhere and I'm just using the same name. It's really important. So that for me, it's the TCO channel model model. Like if you tied that. All my accounts are coming up really important to keep the branding basically, because that's how you can be found everywhere. 

And then the hashtags are super important to be found on, on Google too. Yeah. And the tagging, because if people tag you, it also comes in the algorithm of Google just to find a bull and then comes on Pinterest and find it comes on. Yeah. 

It just, all it's all linked. Right. So if you do it right you're pretty easily. 

Find-able.  

[00:07:57] Matthew Holliday: Now I do remember. So I'm in the tech industry, as it seems like an awful lot of photographers are. And I do remember that Google uses kind of like reputation and how many people link you as well. Moving you up or down in the search results?  

[00:08:13] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: That's right.  

[00:08:15] Matthew Holliday: No, that makes sense. If you're everywhere and then everywhere links to everywhere else, then that kind of builds up a little bit of a base for you for the. 

[00:08:22] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Yes, it does.  

[00:08:24] Matthew Holliday: All right. So you mentioned that out of all of those venues Instagram is kind of your main hub and then you opened up some other ones to both get your, get the brand recognition out there. And also for search engine optimization. Do you post differently to each one or is it all kind of the same content across all. 

[00:08:45] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: I would say it's the same that I post everyday on Instagram. And so I'm using the same post. After on every platform, but I rewrite the captions because Twitter, for example, has only 150 word characters for captions. And I rewrite according to the platforms. So it fits still. So retagging the people properly on each on each ER, Social media, because like photographers, for example, don't have the same name of a constantly Facebook then on Instagram, Twitter. 

So to tag them properly, I kind of have to manually we type the captions. But so Yeah. 

I'm using the same photo, but on the Twitter, for example, because it's this kind of platform where you should be really active and work. Both like every kind of two hours on Twitter I do extra posts. So I do a thoughts before per day. 

Just to be properly active on Twitter.  

[00:09:52] Matthew Holliday: That was actually going to be one of our later questions. But since you mentioned that we can go ahead and jump up and do it right now. Is there an optimal amount of posting you should be doing? If I remember reading somewhere I don't know if this is true or not, but I remember reading somewhere that on Instagram, you should post daily to make sure that you're still being seen. 

[00:10:11] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Yeah, I think, I think like that, like daily is amazing because it's a, it's a great consistency for your follow-up. They get to see your everyday. And then if you're really consistent also at the time they're used to see your posts at a certain time. It's like I used to post in the mornings and I, now I have people with all like, oh, every morning, I'm waiting for your posts, you know? 

So you build this, like people are waiting for it. So data is great, but I think what is the most important on social media? It's consistency and it doesn't matter which consistency it can be every two days or every three days once a week, but just be consistent at it. It's the key,  

[00:10:59] Matthew Holliday: Yeah, that makes sense. Let's  

[00:11:00] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: I mean,  

[00:11:02] Matthew Holliday: Ever since I read that post, I've been thinking about how to post more often without spamming people. Since the podcast only comes out every two weeks, I really only have new content every two weeks. And I don't want to create like a daily post being like watch out for this in 14 days. 

Watch out for this in 13 days for. From models and photographers that especially as hobbyists, maybe they're only producing work every month or something. Do you have any thoughts on what kind of content they could produce? That won't be annoying. Do you go back to old shoots or 

[00:11:31] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: I tried to, don't go back to. I try to, I never, we posted the same photo twice. This is one of my rules. If I do go back in all the older. But if you don't have content, I think it's great to do, like, for example, keep doing engagement in stories on Instagram. So keep a relationship, explaining what you're going to be working on your next shoot or showing maybe how you're editing the photos of your photographs. I dunno, maybe as a modal, speaking about what you were going to work on or what you work or how you choosing photos, or like just keeping, you know, keeping the connection with the followers in the stories and the stories don't need to be as professional, let's say as the posts. Right. For y'all. But yeah, just keeping the community engaged that you're there. That's that's what I would suggest. 

[00:12:34] Matthew Holliday: That's funny. I was just thinking I should do a, I should do a story of doing the podcast. Then apparently every time I start recording the podcast. 

[00:12:42] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Well, when you're like about to Ricardo, you could do alive, alive before or anything. Like there's just so many tools. We have Instagram now with whales and the ITV, and even now the guides are amazing. It's just, it's so many tools to use to, to market.  

[00:13:07] Matthew Holliday: That's funny. 

[00:13:09] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: So it's not just the post as being a still photo. It's just a lot of, you can build up anticipation with a countdown in stories. You can, you can do a poll asking people what they wish to hear about, and then they tell you yes or no. And then, you know, what interests your audience? Yeah, just, just skip the engagement, you know, the people. No, they weren't, you, they see you're doing something. 

[00:13:38] Matthew Holliday: Yeah, that's funny. That's a good idea. I'll have to, I'll have to actually, you know, start paying attention to that stuff at a time. What's your overall business goal for social media? Are you currently trying to maximize your number of followers? Are you trying to maximize interaction? Are you using it as a vehicle for getting modeling work or other work or is your goal right now to start monetizing the followers yet? 

[00:14:04] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: My main goal it's my overall goal is build the community. Because once you have the community, well, then you can think about converting. If people are not you're, you're done, you don't have any interaction with your followers, you can't cover anything. So the overall goal is always building the community. 

And the secondary goal. Yes. It's to connect with photographers and and get books for shoots. Of course. And then, and the next one is to convert funds into followers, into paid funds, to my Jamani sites and monetizing.  

[00:14:49] Matthew Holliday: Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, I imagine for all. Kind of the end goal is monetizing, but I can imagine that, you know, first you have to build the audience. So people will be in different kinds of stages of that. So that certainly makes sense. 

[00:15:04] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Yeah, they need to, they need to know you. They need to understand what you're doing. They have to feel connected to your, to you in some way before they get to monitor, you get to monetize. It's I guess it's quite normal that you're not going to give money to someone you don't know, and you don't understand what they're doing. 

So let's say.  

[00:15:27] Matthew Holliday: yeah, that makes sense. Do you automate your posting at all or do you post manually each day? It's all of these sites. 

[00:15:34] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: So I use a, I use an app to prepare my posts. I organize on the photos according to colors to shoot two locations. Poses and the variety between ballet fitness and yoga. I shuffle all my photos around and I prefer the wall. So I already know how my wall is going to look aesthetically and I do prepare the captions. So I'm usually about two to three weeks ahead. I have for my posts, which are pre prepared. But I posted manually because. I want to be my days are very variable, according to shoots and traveled so many, many different things. So I can't really predict at what time I would be available to be on my phone when the post is going. 

And the why is, is that the first hour when you're posting is the most important time? And I am on if I'm posting on my phone for one hour,  

The first hour, and I'm responding to every comment because that's the way how to have your post boosted and shown to more people.  

[00:17:05] Matthew Holliday: Oh, interesting. 

[00:17:07] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: So yes, the more interaction your post. 

So likes and comments and of course shares, but shares your country, you control. But basically by my commenting back to your comments and say, thank you or whatever people are saying there you are boosting your own post because you're doubling the amount of comments.  

[00:17:30] Matthew Holliday: Right. 

[00:17:31] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: And in the same time, you're actually building that the community because you're interacting with the following. 

Because the one which are commenting are the ones which are really interested in your work. So that's like a double, it's a double win. It's a, it's a win because you're boosting your post for Instagram and Instagram is showing the posts to more of your audience and second year building the community. 

So that's why I don't do it to my, I don't automate my. And I prefer to, to know, like when that I'm going to be available for the next hour to take care about that post. Because if you don't get the engagements at first hour, your post is dead. Your post is garbage.  

[00:18:21] Matthew Holliday: Yeah, that's it. I have noticed some of my Twitter stuff because since Twitter says you kind of front and center, how many, how much interaction it gets and how many people have seen that? Yeah. Some of them are getting 2, 3, 4 times as much visibility as others and yeah, that's probably timing and. 

[00:18:37] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Twitter I've ordered them is different. It's about said more by the retweets. So the more you get retreat, the more you have rich and the more you get that Instagram, Instagram is really about the first hour. It's.  

[00:18:53] Matthew Holliday: interesting. All my social networks on everything right now, or, you know, terrible. So I need to, when we were just talking about goals, my goal needs to be, am I need to increase my total number of followers in my reach. Ah, all right. So the next question was going to be, how do you handle. 

You know, responses on your posts and instant messages, but it sounds like you already kind of answered the responses part. How do you handle instant messages on all of these different social media platforms? It sounds like you have kind of dedicated time to handle it. 

[00:19:28] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: The the DMS, you mean the private messages?  

[00:19:31] Matthew Holliday: Yep. Sorry. I'm a little old back in my day, it was AOL instant messenger. So. 

[00:19:36] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Yeah. So. 

on Instagram, they called them DM. The DMS, well, I go with the flow of the day, like when I I'm just getting, going back to my account, I dunno. Every hour or so. I just keep answering to all the messages I get. That's it.  

[00:19:54] Matthew Holliday: I've seen some models, posts that they will only answer DMS that come through like patron. Or, you know, various subscription platforms. Is that something you've explored doing or is the volume not too bad? 

[00:20:07] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: No, I have the, of course, because of the amount of followers I have, I have a very high volume of, of DMD, but I think if we come back to the idea of building a community, Well, if you don't answer to people were started writing to you because they are actually sending you compliments about how amazing is your work. 

I find it really rude to be honest from models, which are saying this because those people are up there and just being nice. And they're just saying most of the time they're, they're getting compliments and one day reaching DM. So I don't understand why. This person took how many, whatever seconds to write this message. 

Well, the thing is just the polite thing to write back. Thank you. It takes two seconds. And coming back to community, that's how you build a community. If you kind of say thank you to someone which gave you a compliment, how you expect this person to convert to. I don't understand the models, which are not answering their, sorry. 

I find it, so,  

[00:21:20] Matthew Holliday: All right. That makes sense. So your number of followers varies per platform. And I ended as part of this makes sense, like you mentioned that Instagram is your primary and then you've kind of opened up another places to try and make sure your name is out there everywhere. Do you find that some platforms get a more interactive followers or followers that are more willing to support you? 

[00:21:45] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Basically it would just really add to that is I have opened a Twitter and Facebook and everything else because of Instagram, mark closing. So many accounts probably heard of that, especially when I read a bit more of a content with. A little bit more so so the Twitter is really like my, my really backup. 

If something happens, I have still people to reach to. and then my Facebook, Facebook is. The people like the funds, there are like real, real funds. They would comment on every photos doesn't matter what a photo is. No, like really supportive on Facebook. Yeah. 

I think, I think Facebook is a great place to be, to.  

[00:22:40] Matthew Holliday: Are there any community issues with Facebook? Kind of like they're on Instagram, where if you're doing art nude stuff, you risk being  

[00:22:47] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: yeah, it's even more strict. And Instagram actually, I had my Facebook closed last year, completely closed and it didn't allow me to reopen and. three months  

[00:23:03] Matthew Holliday: Wow. 

[00:23:04] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: and the other, not even tried your new email address with new names, with new phone numbers, they knew my devices and they knew my detract me and they knew it was me. 

So, so my, like the, the account I have now, like the face new Facebook page I have, it's nothing isn't because I've just reopened it. I had a really big Facebook page prior to that, which they closed and they closed my private account and they've closed everything. So I had to restart from scratch this year on Facebook.  

[00:23:41] Matthew Holliday: That's really interesting to me because aren't you primarily an art nude bottle. You don't do you do fetish and other type of.  

[00:23:49] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: don't do fetish.  

[00:23:50] Matthew Holliday: That's all I thought I that's weird that they would shut you down so hard and you do something that's pretty widely accepted as you know, our, 

[00:23:59] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: And I don't, and I don't sell some of my photos, so I only post in Clyde in-flight Newt, but it's still, so it goes against the community guidelines, the city.  

[00:24:14] Matthew Holliday: Ah, see that would kind of make sense for the public Facebook page, but for the private group where people have to like click in to see you, that makes no sense to me.  

[00:24:24] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: And on the group is the same. Yeah, I did get a few warnings already in the group.  

[00:24:30] Matthew Holliday: Yeah, I got a YouTube warning and the other day I linked, I started, so when I put up the YouTube videos, I started linking to the various models, Instagram so that, you know, if somebody came and saw it, they could go there and follow the bottle. And I got warmed and got a video removed because the Instagram was too much for you to like it's Instagram. 

It's not. 

[00:24:53] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: yeah. it's hard. It's hard.  

[00:24:56] Matthew Holliday: Yeah. 

[00:24:57] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: That's why I have opened the telegram, the telegram accounts.  

[00:25:03] Matthew Holliday: So I'm not actually familiar with telegram. How does telegram differ? 

[00:25:08] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Well, it's kind of like WhatsApp, but yeah, it's not owned by Facebook. Because WhatsApp is owned by Facebook. So telegram is very, yeah, it's very open and it's kind of like, nobody's gonna tell you what you can post on, not on there. You can build up also, you can open a group people in a chat also. 

So people get to, I, I post on there and then my sons are like commenting or chatting there too. So. 

It's just a different way of building a community 

[00:25:44] Matthew Holliday: It's 

[00:25:45] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: and actually. Yeah. It's not like Instagram that say we'll only show your post or whatever. 1% to 10% where in telegram, it's like getting a, getting a text message while you're on your phone. 

You, you read your text messages, right? It doesn't get filtered. It doesn't mean it gets to everybody.  

[00:26:09] Matthew Holliday: That's interesting. Yeah, cause that was when I was looking at it and I was talking about being an instant messenger application and I was wondering how you would replicate, you know, the posting, but that makes sense. If you create a group and you invite followers into that group. 

[00:26:21] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Yes. And then there is an additional chat to it. So  

[00:26:26] Matthew Holliday: Gotcha. I'm gonna have to take a look at that. That's interesting. 

[00:26:30] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: many models are doing this now opening a telegram channel. Cool.  

[00:26:35] Matthew Holliday: So do you have any recommendations for models that are concerned about getting shut off of a platform? Are there things you can do to try and preserve your, like, can you export your contacts? Can you. Save the content somehow, what can you do to help protect yourself? 

[00:26:55] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Well, the first thing I would say is open a backup account on Instagram, right? I have a backup account and make sure that kind of on a weekly basis, you would tell your followers to go follow you. So you keep all your closest followers. We're go there to make sure to don't lose contact with you. Second that's what I'm I do is, is building an email list because having followers is great. 

But when they close your account, you have contact with nobody. So a thing your email list is your business is your people and nobody can take this way. So that's like supporting.  

[00:27:40] Matthew Holliday: Yeah. 

[00:27:41] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Because if they close you anywhere, you can email people and tell them, well, okay, sorry that happened. But now I have opened a new account and you can go and follow me there, where if they close your Instagram and you have no emails, then you're, you're already stuck.  

[00:28:00] Matthew Holliday: Yeah, I think that came up in the conversation. I retweeted a podcast the other day with Jack Conti from Patrion, where that was one of the things he mentioned is that patron allows you to collect email lists. 

[00:28:11] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Yeah, this is amazing. Where on the funds don't give you any emails. So  

[00:28:18] Matthew Holliday: And an Instagram, you just have their handle, which is not helpful because they have to follow you. Like you can't go through $85. Like if your Instagram accounts canceled, you can't go through and DM 85,000 people and say, here's my new Instagram account. 

[00:28:30] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: no, you can't because when you lose it, you lose it, you lose all your chats. Also.  

[00:28:35] Matthew Holliday: And is there a way to like export your list of contacts? 

[00:28:40] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: I heard of if someone who knows.  

[00:28:43] Matthew Holliday: Yeah. Yeah. So how do you treat, so it sounds like you said, you're talking about created a backup account, ask everybody to follow the backup count of which, you know, your most devoted fans will follow the backup account. Then I assume you never post anything that's even remotely bad on the backup account. 

So you can say your backup account is like semi-permanent. 

[00:29:03] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Yeah. My backup account is I'm posting only. Dressed boasts. Yeah, I, I be careful. I don't overuse it neither. I keep it active. And so I posted maybe twice a week or something just to keep it, keep the algorithm working there too, that it's not a dead account. But yeah. I'm really careful with that one. 

Is it.  

[00:29:29] Matthew Holliday: And so I assume that if your main Instagram account was killed, then you would open up a brand new one and then your user backup account to direct everybody to the new one, and then use the new one for your further posting.  

[00:29:42] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: I guess so. Yeah,  

[00:29:44] Matthew Holliday: it hasn't happened yet. 

Yeah. All right. That makes sense. I wonder what you have to do on Twitter to get kicked off of Twitter, because I see a lot of people being really explicit on this. 

[00:29:58] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Oh, yeah, there isn't a lot of explicit content. And then there are some like media mix, basic content, and then the accounts are closed and it's just weird is trench.  

[00:30:10] Matthew Holliday: All right. So how much time per day do you spend keeping up with social media? 

[00:30:14] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Wow. I dunno, I, I know I've checked on only Instagram. You have this they tell you how much time you spend on the app settings. Somewhere around three hours, I think. Or they, I have on Instagram And then Facebook and Twitter to that. Yeah. So Rafi, maybe before.  

[00:30:43] Matthew Holliday: do you get most of your work from social media or do you like the higher photographers hiring you? 

[00:30:48] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Yeah, honestly, I mean, Instagram is not where I'm getting 90% of my, of my job requests.  

[00:30:57] Matthew Holliday: Interesting. 

[00:30:58] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: I was at 10%. It's on Facebook.  

[00:31:01] Matthew Holliday: So your purple port doesn't really do anything.  

[00:31:04] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: oh no,  

It's good to be there because when I, I use paper forward. When I'm traveling and let's say, I have like this one time slot where I'm like, I need another shoot. Right. Last two, lots available. Then I do a casting on third report saying that I'm coming and I have my last slot available. And that's how I, I, I fill up my schedule, but that's it. 

I don't really get much from verbal.  

[00:31:37] Matthew Holliday: How do you make sure that photographers in the right geographic area are finding you on Instagram? 

[00:31:47] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Oh, I don't. They just find me 

to be honest. That's how it goes.  

[00:31:58] Matthew Holliday: I'll  

[00:31:58] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: They find me.  

[00:31:59] Matthew Holliday: I'm seen, you mentioned, you know, in some of them like, you know, during my stay in Washington, DC, but that was that's after the fact. I was just wondering if you announced it or I do see that you have Spain, Germany, France, and I'm gonna show my ignorance. What does C H. China  

[00:32:19] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: No, it's a Switzerland.  

[00:32:21] Matthew Holliday: CHS Switzerland. 

What's interesting. I would not have guessed that  

[00:32:25] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: yeah.  

[00:32:26] Matthew Holliday: I knew Germany was Deutschland. And I knew Spain was Espana. I did not know that CHS Switzerland.  

[00:32:33] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Yes.  

[00:32:34] Matthew Holliday: So I do see that you, you do have that posted on your Instagram where you're going to be for traveling. So that makes sense. 

[00:32:39] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Yeah. I have my traveling schedule on my website and and then I repost it in my, in my Instagram stories and in my Facebook stories.  

[00:32:49] Matthew Holliday: All right. One of the first things you see when you go to your website is asking you to sign up for an email list, which again goes back to what you're just talking about, trying to control your fans list. Do you get a lot of pickup on there? 

[00:33:03] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: yeah, it worked quite good. I mean, the ones which sign up are the ones which are interested in my work and fun following it. So I'm not it's for me, it's not really about the amount. It's about the quality of the people, which sign up. So to have the ones which are really interested in what I do that decide that.  

[00:33:22] Matthew Holliday: I just, it just asked me again to sign up. I went over to the tour and event based patient. It popped up again saying subscribe to the TCS updates. 

No worries. No worries. So yeah. All right. So I'm looking at your tour dates and yeah, you definitely have, you know, which state wow. You're you are all over the place right now. You're in Spain tomorrow. You're going to be in Madrid, just moving. 

[00:33:47] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Yes. Well, it's good to be moving after being stuck home with a lot. using the opportunity, you never know now and what they're going to do.  

[00:34:04] Matthew Holliday: And hopefully this Delta variant goes away soon enough, then we can hopefully get back to normal. All right. Well, we're not here to talk about touring as interesting as that can be. Did you have, did you end up hiring anybody to create your website or have you built it yourself? 

[00:34:20] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: No, no. I had, I had somebody to build that. I had, I had the concept in my mind and then she had me also with her ideas. And then we came up. Yeah. She, she, she did it. 

[00:34:37] Matthew Holliday: I mean, it will, it looks like a lot of it could be done with a, what you see what you get editor, except you have a custom, you've got a, you got an exclusive login place. 

[00:34:46] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: but I I'm, I'm update. I'm doing all the updates. So I upload new photos. I changed my schedule. I do that myself. But the, the building the whole life. No, she, she did all of it. And then when I moved to change something like bigger, like for example, that this popping a window, which conflict for the emails describing. Well, 

then she, she does that for me when I need a bigger modifications.  

[00:35:18] Matthew Holliday: would you recommend that all models have a website so they can control their own kind of brands and email list? 

[00:35:26] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Definitely. I mean, this should be your portfolio. Your website should be our portfolio, not your social media, not only a social media, because like I said, like you can wake up one morning and you have no Instagram and actually having a website as a model makes you look, I think more professional in the eyes of photographers. 

To your look legit, you know, you're glad you, you're doing your professional approach to you to your work. And I think you can organize your photos the way you want them to be shown where on social media, it's kind of kind of random I chose as he chose. So yeah.  

[00:36:11] Matthew Holliday: I'm looking at your media page. Now the the Playboy shoot with the cello was that's actually really brilliant. So, yeah, and I am looking at your media page now. So lots of publications, lots of opportunity to kind of show what you've done as well. So yeah, that, that makes a lot of. 

I noticed you also have a specific login form on your website for yet another kind of exclusive place. Do you find that overlaps with your Patrion fans or is this a separate group of people? 

[00:36:43] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: It's actually helps because there are there are cases when when people don't want to open a pantry on a counter and only 10 accounts, but they do want to, they want to pay and they want to see more of my work. So that's an amazing extra tools I have where they can just do it through my website. 

And you don't need to open any app.  

[00:37:08] Matthew Holliday: Now for some of the questions that everyone's been waiting for, how would you recommend to build a following on your social media platforms? 

[00:37:16] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Well, I will come back to build a community, which means, let's say you have zero followers and maybe you have one post on your page. Then I will go and go and follow people, which you wish to be. So let's say photograph offers, which you admire their work models, which you like, and just start engaging with all those people and following them, liking their posts, commenting on their posts and watching their stories. 

So they see that you're watching that. And doing that a lot at the beginning. And then if you start posting another way of building engagement at the beginning and building the community, it's to reach to every single person which liked or comment on your photo and start a conversation in DM. And and Yeah. 

that's the way after, because you start talking to them, they feel closer to you. 

They will keep commenting every time you're posting. So it's going to build the engagement and the algorithm of your account be quite high. And then it just does the snowball effect. You know, if you have good content after your. Your photos can be posted on those. I call them repost pages. And this does this snowball effect of finding new people, people following you. 

And I just building up the community basically of people, of, of the niche you're in.  

[00:38:52] Matthew Holliday: Are there certain types of content that are more successful at generating interest? 

[00:38:58] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Well, you know, the nude content always kind of works, especially if it's the backside photo. But usually post where you ask a question. So for example, in photography asking, would you prefer photo number 1, 2, 3, 4, or do you prefer color of black and white? Or just building, asking a question in your caption. 

So you have. And engagement, but a constructive engagement in your comments. So opening a conversation about telling me why you're like this photo, not just so it's, it's really a nice, I like to you get the really great feedback. Sometimes people have different point of view about why the like, Okay. 

It's just another way to build them the relationship.  

[00:39:56] Matthew Holliday: Yeah. You know what, it's funny, you mentioned the posting multiple and asking, I just saw. This morning, I think where she posted seven asked people which one they liked the 

[00:40:05] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Because at the moment there is also the Instagram is boosting the algorithm if you're doing and multiple posts. So of course they call them . So if you you'll post more than three photos in one post. They they're posting this kind of post also, even if you liked that post, it will show again in your feed, wherever another photo from that post. So at the end, you reach way more people because this post is keep coming in your feed until you're dead. And like, look at all the photos of the feed of the, of the post. Yeah. So yeah, we sell at the moment and reels are like the two things since their grandma prioritizing in terms of I'll go with them.  

[00:40:56] Matthew Holliday: I said, they're the latest things that have been released. So pushing that.  

[00:41:00] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Yeah.  

[00:41:01] Matthew Holliday: All right. Well, I had a bunch of our questions, but we're not going to get to those sadly. Let's sit on that one question I talked about before. So talking on the subject of monetizing your fans and subscribers, there's a common kind of assumption going around creator media, that around 1% of your fans will convert to pain supporters. 

Do you think that's an accurate assumption? 

[00:41:26] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: I think it's wrong. It's way lower than that would be great if it would be, but that's not the reality.  

[00:41:35] Matthew Holliday: Yeah. And I imagine, like you mentioned earlier, like your Instagram is a fairly easy place for people to just follow an endless stream of creators, but you mentioned that the people in your Facebook group were a lot more active. What when something like Facebook or Twitter, be a better kind of measure than your Instagram followers. 

[00:41:57] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: I think my bait funds are a combination of every social media. They're not really like just articular platforms. They're a little bit from everywhere. I'm not sure how to count that.  

[00:42:12] Matthew Holliday: That's fair. All right. I see you also do some social media consulting who normally hires you. 

[00:42:18] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: All those. Yeah, as bearing models or those which are starting which they have a lot of questions about the industry overall and also about how to handle photographers, how to manage, how to book shoots, how to build up a following on social media and how to monetize their, their followers. So that's, that's that's what I have them. Yeah, I did talk a few photographers, which reached to me, but I did it, you know, just as a friend, I give them tips a little bit, try this, try that. But we had mainly models.  

[00:43:04] Matthew Holliday: Yeah, it's kind of unfortunate that, I mean, it's good. In some ways the social media is so important because it allows you to reach so much of a wider group of people than you could reach, you know, 20 or 30 or 500 years ago. But it's also kind of unfortunate that we're all forced to let these platforms basically in sometimes dictate, you know, your livelihood. 

[00:43:24] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Yeah. That's I mean, I guess it's just part of foul word right now. Like if you're not on social media, it's like, you don't exist in that vivid. That it is what it is.  

[00:43:36] Matthew Holliday: So I assume you're currently taking on new clients for the social media consulting and people should reach out to you if they want to know more. 

[00:43:42] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Sure.  

[00:43:45] Matthew Holliday: you're not going to say no, you're not going to say no. Don't reach out to  

[00:43:48] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: I'm really like, I enjoy marketing. I enjoy all of this sharing my tips and helping people. So definitely.  

[00:43:59] Matthew Holliday: All right. Well, we are unfortunately just about at a time. We've got one last question here. What is your favorite photo in your portfolio? 

[00:44:08] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: It's the photo by Kai York is the photo I have used for the cover of my book. And I feel and I don't know if you can understand which photo it is. I'm like frontal and in a grand PA position with closed eyes. It's a color photo.  

[00:44:34] Matthew Holliday: I'm bringing it up. The book feel, oh, I see. That was also used. That was on the media page as well.  

[00:44:41] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Yeah, because.  

[00:44:42] Matthew Holliday: for something else. 

[00:44:43] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Right. It has, because when I launched the book,  

My book has been featured with an interview in a magazine and you've made it to the cover. 

[00:44:53] Matthew Holliday: That makes sense then. Yeah, because that's really interesting. I know we're almost out of time and I apologize. But what was making this book like? 

[00:45:00] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: It was great. It was amazing. I did it last year during the Lebanon. Yeah, I, I, you know, something, I just love that that shoots so much than the photos of that shoot that I was like, this needs to be, it needs to be in paper form. It needs to be printed. So yeah, I spoke with guy and then we were like, okay, let's do the book. And it wasn't, it wasn't, it was a success as a success with. Or the book in the month,  

[00:45:31] Matthew Holliday: Wow.  

[00:45:32] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: it was great.  

[00:45:33] Matthew Holliday: So are you guys going to reprint it? I say that you said you sold out of it. It's showing is out of stock. Okay. 

[00:45:39] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Well, we can't technically because we sold it as a limited edition  

[00:45:43] Matthew Holliday: Oh,  

[00:45:44] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: a number, I suppose, the numbered and. Edition. So well, to be fair to the people which got it, we can, we can't reprint this, this exact book we count,  

[00:45:57] Matthew Holliday: That makes sense. 

[00:45:58] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: but we are looking at at doing the part two of it. So.  

[00:46:03] Matthew Holliday: All right. All right. Now we really are at a time. So, let's CCL work and everyone find you online. 

[00:46:10] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: Yeah. So on my website and that TCI model.com, that's my main, my main hub, where you will find everything, anything in your updates, everything is there. And then they really, and the best is to follow me on Instagram and that this year on discord channel and this core model a lot of stories and daily, daily bulbs.  

[00:46:36] Matthew Holliday: As you mentioned before, do you have any ongoing projects you'd like to mention. 

[00:46:43] Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe: So, yeah. One is a, is the part two of field. And then the second one is a, is my book with a Andrea Brazil. Also the first photograph where I worked with, which got me into photography. We are. Gathering all the shoots with it, which are five and putting that into, into the book. It's going to be exciting project.  

[00:47:10] Matthew Holliday: Yeah that I just, I love the idea of putting together like a cohesive book with just, you know, one model and one photographer or heck actually might be interesting to do one model and a bunch of different photographers and kind of see how they all anyways. Yeah, that sounds super exciting. All right. 

And with that, we are done. Check us out@deanandcheckusoutatdnsfwphotographypodcast.com on Twitter as NSFW photography at the NSFW photography podcast and subscribe at your favorite podcast app. Keep making art, keep sharing art and have a great week.

Laetitia Bouffard-RoupeProfile Photo

Laetitia Bouffard-Roupe

Laetitia is a ballet dancer and published, international nude art model.