Wearing black leather pants and a cape top, she reclined on a velvet armchair under the frescoed ceiling of a 19th-century Florentine villa, flanked by a hair and makeup artist, as a photographer clicked away.

The model was not a $5,000-a-day runway pro from Elite Model Management, but Gina DeVee, a 41-year-old success coach from Montecito, Calif. Ms. DeVee paid a photographer $3,500 to create magazine-worthy images for her Facebook and Twitter profiles, as well as her professional website. The goal, she said, is to create “personal brand buzz.”

“This stuff isn’t only for J. Lo,” Ms. DeVee said. “I love being a rock star in my own life.”

There are times, it seems, when an iPhone and an outstretched arm just won’t do.