First Impressions before First Contact
As a Portrait Photographer, it is my job to capture people at their best, in the best way possible. From your choice of attire to a tilt of the head, a lift of the chin, or drop of the shoulders, all little things that can make a big difference to how you look in a photograph, and that's my job to know these things.
Recently, I have been working with several companies capturing Headshots for their employees. From a business perspective, these people are your best assets, and using quality images of the people behind your company can make all of the difference when a prospective client looks you up online.
When I come across a company or brand i’m not familiar with, I Google them. I guess you do too. I check out their website, their Facebook page, perhaps their employees' LinkedIn pages, and more recently their Instagram; I’m a bit of a sucker for a beautifully curated Instagram feed… but that’s a whole separate blog post for another time!
That first glimpse into a new Company is not to be underestimated. Branding and Imagery is essential to the way your company is perceived within the first few seconds of landing on your homepage, making the difference between a clickthrough or return to search results.
If you’ve had a website created for your business, your web designers may have used stock images, generic photographs that are available to purchase for use on a website or for publicity, for a varying fee. But the people shown these images are not your employees, and they may well be featured on other similar websites all over the world!
So why not use the people behind Your Brand to be the face of Your Company? These are the people that you specifically hand picked to enhance your business, and would be giving prospective clients the opportunity to put a face to the voice on the end of the phone or the email. You can start to build that all important rapport before your first contact, showing friendliness across the virtual ether, thus giving your company that edge that could secure the deal over your rival.
But it isn’t just Companies that need to think about their online presence. As individuals, we use social networking in our personal lives as well as our professional lives, most of us several times a day. The power of a photograph is not to be underestimated. In a world where so many of our interactions with other people are virtual, it is important for our profile pictures to give the right impression. Our LinkedIn picture, our Facebook picture, our WhatsApp picture.
How do YOU want to present Yourself and Your Brand to the people you are yet to meet?
with love,
Rachel x
