Ten Reasons why strong business headshots are important

By professional photographer Neil Moore who works across the UK and has a studio at Cadley, near Marlborough.

How often do you see the photo of a business contact that looks nothing like the person who you meet in person?

Worse still you are unable to find a photo of a business contact you are going to meet for the first time? Not on their LinkedIn profile or even on their website which is stuffed full of stock shots? 

We are the face of our business, whether we like it or not, so an up-to-date business headshot is important for you and your business and here is why:

1.     These days, when so much business is done online, you need to be seen, and your image must be of you as you look now, not how you looked many years ago. We age, we change weight, we change our hairstyles. Taking a picture on your phone, and adding filters, just isn’t going to cut it for professional images. It doesn’t look professional, and you are fibbing about how you look. It can give a message of inauthenticity.

2.     According to LinkedIn, adding a photo to your profile makes you 36 times more likely to receive a message than those without photos.  You will receive far more engagement. If you don’t have a photo, then why not?

3.     Spending money on professional photography shows you are serious about your business. You care about your brand, and how you represent your business. Professional photographers know how to get the best from you. They may use lights to enhance the photo. You can have a range of different backgrounds and venues for a photoshoot, and with a professional photographer, you won’t have unwanted things growing out of your head! How you present your brand says something about the quality of who you are in your business.

4.     Some people shut their eyes, as soon as they hear a camera shutter go. Most professional photographers have tips and ways to get around this. Also, the flash affects many people too, and again, professional photographers know how to deal with this, using other photographic tools. 

5.     Having a range of headshots are useful for different marketing materials. Headshots for your website may be slightly different to those used for company reports, or professional association magazines, or conference booklets. Getting the right tone is very important to match the style of the place your image is to appear.

6.     High resolution images are important if they are to be used in printed material, and often mobile phone images don’t make the grade, despite what all of the marketing material says. (It is often not the quality of camera on phones, but the actual capture which is bad). Most professional cameras capture far more information, in terms of pixels, which means the images can be blown up to huge sizes.

7.     Journalists and magazines on the whole want colour images. Newspapers don’t want black and white, because any subtleties disappear in the print. Camera’s capture more vital digital information when taking a colour photograph, compared to using the black and white setting (which some non-professional cameras have). If you want black and white images, it is much better to ask your photographer if you can also have black and white versions, alongside the colour ones.

8.     We live in a fast moving world, and as sad as it is, often, contacts are so busy that they don’t bother to read more than a few lines of your business profile online, but if they like the look of you, you are more likely to stay in their mind.

9.     Having excellent, quality imagess of yourself boosts your confidence, makes you want to share your pictures more often, and gives you reasons to actually share images.

10.  Having good professional headshots makes you more visible, and makes you stand out from the crowd.

For more information visit https://www.moore-photographics.com