In a previous post, I talked about 3 Reasons You Need To Hire a Branding Photographer.

This time I wanted to expand on reason #2 - creating trust through imagery.

As I already mentioned in that post, there’s nothing like beautiful images to help you show off your unique personality and style.

There are more and more businesses competing for everyone’s attention these days. It’s getting harder to stand out and catch the attention of your ideal client. So what to do?

Well, there’s no better way to eliminate competition than by being yourself!

There’s only one you and no one can copy your essence. And that’s what you should aim to capture in your personal brand photoshoot - YOUR ESSENCE.

That’s how you can start to really build trust online and on social media. It’s not enough to just post educational content. You have to pair it with high-quality photos for maximum impact.

Professionally taken, intentional story-telling images encourage confidence and trust in you and your company.

So that means, having ENOUGH photos of YOU throughout your website and social media platforms.

It also means, not hiding behind your logo. You’ve probably come across this too at some point, so you might know what I mean here. I’m talking about those who use their logo as a Facebook or Instagram profile image. Sorry if I’m calling you out on it but that’s a big no-no.

I personally don’t ever accept friend requests from people who don’t have a clear photo of themselves as their profile pic. Why? Because it gives me a strange sense that I can’t fully trust them for some reason. It just feels like they’re hiding something and themselves because they’re not allowing me to see who they really are. It may not even be their intention at all but that’s how it comes off!

The same goes for not having enough photos of you on your website. Sometimes I come across sites of service providers that have either:

a) only one photo of themselves which looks like a selfie

b) zero photos of themselves which is even worse!

I’m sorry to be blunt... but if you want to be taken seriously, neither of the above will cut it.

With so much noise online, people are desperate to really connect with the person behind the business! No matter what kind of business you’re running (although this applies especially to solopreneurs), you need to build the KNOW, LIKE and TRUST factor.

And what better way to do that with someone you haven’t met yet than with professional and impactful photography?

Another thing is that some people tend to also use too much stock photography from the many available free stock photo sites. You may think they’re beautifully taken and professional looking but... so do thousands of other people who use the exact same photos. I’ve personally seen the same photos appear over and over on several different personal websites. Doesn’t exactly scream original, does it? Plus, using a lot of stock photos has an old-school vibe. Let’s just stay away from that altogether.

The last point I want to make is that having current photos of yourself is essential. That means that if you changed your hairstyle drastically, it’s time for new photos!  

I’ve been noticing this happening a lot through my own networking. Sometimes I meet people on Facebook and when I meet them in real life, they look nothing like their photo. This may be because that photo was taken years ago, they had a different hairstyle or it’s got poor lighting that doesn’t really do them justice. Whatever the case, it’s hard to fully trust a person that’s hiding behind something they’re not, isn’t it?

To create trust, you want to make sure your photos reflect what you currently look like so there’s no confusion.

Do you agree with my points? Let me know in the comments below :)