FACING UP TO SOCIAL MEDIA PORTRAITS

Why professional people need to post images on social media profiles

Should I or shouldn't I spend the money to employ a professional photographer for social media profile portraits? In fact, why bother adding an image to my social media profiles at all? 

When asked, most people will tell you that we join social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to network. We want to grow our businesses and extend the reach of our brands.

But what we are really doing is making friends. We want to foster friendships that can help us achieve our business goals. But also chums we can chat to because we like them and we like what they do. Social media makes it possible for us to link up with people we may never have met in places we would never get to in real life. Once we have got to know one another better, sooner or later we might do business together. 

Research has shown that twitter accounts with a profile picture have ten times more followers that those without.

How do we go about connecting with new people and colleagues on social media? 

Well, it seems the same way as we would in real life - we want to look them in they eye. From infancy, human beings are hard-wired to recognise faces.  There are billions of people on earth and many share the same name but each person’s face looks different. Recognising faces is a very complex process combining cognitive and emotional aspects to not only identify a face but also to interpret feelings.

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is credibility and integrity it seems.

The first thing we do when scanning a person’s face whether in the flesh or on a social media page, is to focus attention on the eyes, or to be more accurate in the vicinity of the eyes. What we are really doing is ‘reading’ the other person’s eyebrows. According to some researchers, eyebrows seem to do more than protect the eyes against rain and perspiration. It acts as important visual markers during face recognition, when expressing emotions and social signals and therefore in voluntary and involuntary non-verbal communication. We convey a number of different emotions by merely moving our eyebrows such as confusion, astonishment, anger. Just think how effective eyebrows are used in the different emoticons we use in electronic communication. The eyebrows also add to the aesthetics of faces and help us distinguish between sexes.

Once we have ‘read’ the face, our decision as to whether or not we like and trust that person happens lightning fast. And according to Graham Jones in his blog InternetPsychology we make a decision within 100 milliseconds. So it seems it really is true that we have one and only one, very short, chance to make an impression.

It is therefore vital that we have a full face portrait picture on all our social media profiles but it follows that the kind of image we have on our website or on our social networking profiles will influence whether people wish to connect with us.

What must this portrait picture look like?

What should this photograph that is strong enough to impress a visitor to my website or social profile look like?  

Understanding that our eyes are instantly drawn to someone else’s eyes, it makes sense to rather use a head-and-shoulders portrait rather than a full body shot. In fact researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem tell us exactly what our profile pictures need to look like to foster trust. According to these experts we all prefer looking at a baby-faced image with the wrinkles ironed-out.

But hold on! Before cranking up Photoshop to smooth out and flesh out those portrait photographs, (unless you do it for a living) and probably ending up looking nothing at all like your real life self, there is safer way of ‘enhancing’ profile photo. Why don’t you consider the services of a professional photographer?

Why bother with paying a professional photographer for an image you are going to use on social media? 

As a professional or businesses owner, you are your brand. Everyone of your actions conveys a message. Everything you do and everything you say becomes an expression of your brand. So does the way you look. And knowing what we know about how humans appraise each other on sight, your visual representation is vital. This is especially so on social media where you have only one chance at making an impression and that in a tiny square next to your name.

Just as a graphic designer aligns your corporate identity with the brand objectives and the career copywriter helps you take control of your written and spoken communication, employing a professional photographer provides you with appropriate profile photographs and other images that convey appropriate and effective visual messages.

 What makes a professional photographer’s images so special?

The obvious reasons include the professional photographer’s superior equipment (a cell phone image just can not compare with a professional cameras and lenses), technical experience to project your image in the best possible light (literally) and professional skills to set you at ease and take up as little of your valuable time as possible.

But it is the combination of all of these factors that makes the real difference. In some ways, photography is like gardening. It is the sequencing of steps, one building on the other, that creates a magnificent final product.

The process of taking a professional portrait starts before the shoot, not during the shoot and definitely not with the digital manipulation process afterwards. The success of each step is influenced by many factors starting with a clear brief and thorough preparation by both the subject and the photographer. The two of you have to select the right time, the appropriate (but original) setting, the appropriate outfit and whether make-up and hairstyling is required.

Besides turning up looking your best on the day, there is not much more you need to do. It is up to the photographer to create a portrait that will jump-start the conversations on social media.

Next time we will look in detail at how to prepare for a portrait shoot.