The Headshot for Creative Credibility
I cannot be the only one who sees the relationship between your headshot and your credibility.
When I browse through LinkedIn, starting conversations, reading the groups, or researching people to either help me run my business or to network with, I have found that my own belief in someone’s credibility is profoundly influenced by their profile picture.
The Marketing and Branding Professional who has a well crafted image, optimized for the site, that looks clean and professional, definitely has a better chance of me believing their posts, and being interested in their services, than the one shot with the web camera on a laptop.
Especially the one where they are lit from the laptop and look like something out of a late night horror movie.
The same goes for the motivational speaker who, when I asked about it, said that he looked “frugal” because he used his cell phone camera to do a portrait.
Don’t get me wrong.
I have seen a lot of cell phone photos that are interesting. The selfie has it’s own entry in the Websters Dictionary.
But, very rarely are they successful profile pictures.
In the case of the motivational speaker, he looked out of focus, out of frame and out of his mind if he thought I would invest in his seminar.
A Headshot is Not a Selfie
A headshot is not a school portrait. Its not a Selfie and its not a party pic.
It is a marketing tool.
And, like any marketing tool, it should be designed to appeal to a specific target market and help them to come to a decision.
The decision to hire you, of course!
The image in the header of this blog post is Kristen Yngve, principle at Vaxa Creative, a design firm that creates marketing tools for unique and interesting boutique companies.
She was frustrated with too many potential clients asking her for a meeting and not understanding who she was when she walked in the door.
Our goal was to create a creative headshot that would help them to get that she was a very talented designer and marketer, approachable and professional, who was also young!
The talented Kacie Corbelle was on hair and makeup for us.
- Tags: Executive Portraits, headshots, How To...
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