Personal brands have become more important than ever, with the acceptance of social media in all aspects of our personal and business lives. The idea of a personal brand comes from the idea that we are the culmination of our ability, knowledge and connections. Through networking, new opportunities are born from the personal brand that we created for ourselves. Networking opportunities have little to do with the company we might represent since that may change over time. We know companies by their unique brand logo, an image that serves as shorthand to the community for what that company is all about. As individuals, we too have a unique image identifier and in social media it’s represented by our headshot.
Being visually oriented is part of our culture and conditioning from an early age. How often do we recognize a face before we can remember a name? Descriptions of people often include observations like, “kind eyes”, “strong jawline” or “warm smile”. The uncomfortable truth is that as humans, we make unconscious judgements based on these visual, facial cues. The question then becomes, how do we work with those facial cues to support and bolster our “brand”? The headshot becomes the shorthand that sums up our resume, reputation and personality for your network to use for identification.
The old saying of ‘putting your best foot forward’ is truer in today’s age of social media networking. Your brand needs a strong image that goes along with and supports the value that you bring to your network. Unless you’re a skiing, diving or suntanning instructor, replace those vacation pictures occupying your headshot space. It’s nice to be the “fun” person, but your headshot should also say you can get things done. The same banishment goes for group shots, awkwardly cropped photos and blurred pictures as headshots as well. This removal is not to say there isn’t a place for these in social media, just not as your personal logo.
When using LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or some other social media site, it’s common to network and create friendships online, in advance of a meeting in person. This new networking model makes your brand more important than ever. Through careful use of posing, lighting, color and the approximately 43 muscles in the face, we can create and support a brand. Want your network to see you as professional, responsive, trustworthy or intuitive? Let your headshot say it first.
In upcoming weeks, we will take a deeper look at how to make strong headshots. It doesn’t matter if you’re hiring an experienced, professional photographer or you’re an enlightened do-it-yourselfer, make your headshot memorable to your network for the right reasons.