In a previous post, I talked about mayking mistakes on branding for my business. In this post I wanted to talk about something that I was complimented for. The profile picture. The profile pic is now important than ever given the growth of social media applications that we as business owners cannot fail to ignore, and if you do a Google search, you will be inundated with posts stating what and what not to do when it comes to profile pics. When starting a business it is important to decide where you are going to spend your pennies (or dollars and cents) and investing some money on your profile pics is really important. There are other ways of getting that profile pic without spending money if you don’t have the budget for it.
- Do you have a friend or family member whose hobby is photography?
- Do you know of colleges nearby where there are photography students who are looking for volunteers to have their head shots taken?
- Maybe you know of a photographer who is just starting their business and would like to take photographs in return for acknowledgement for their work online?
- Perhaps you could barter your goods and services in return for a good profile pic?
- I was once asked if a photographer could take photographs of me whilst I ran one of my tea events, in return for having his branding on the photograph? I duly obliged.
I have been extremely lucky in that when I started my business in London, I came across two photographers who were just starting their business and wanted their foot in the door. This was my first profile pic taken care of the beauTEAful Nicole from Blue Drop Photography fame.
My photo reflected my core values in my branding – note the use of green, brown (ring) and white (cup) again. Nicole also took some great photographs of my tea as well, which I used for my first website. She did an amazing job and I was really happy with the results, although if I was going to be picky about my photo, perhaps I should’ve smiled, and, according to this LinkedIn Post, I’m right.
This photograph was taken with Mike’s branding on the bottom of the photograph. Suck that tummy in, May King and smile!!
When I moved to Brisbane, Australia, I came across an extremely talented artist, photographer and videographer. I felt that Kerrin’s photographs were a cut above the rest because not only is she looking through the lens as a photographer, she is also looking through the lens as an artist and I felt that she captured something quite unique to other photographers.
We had a lot of fun on the day of the shoot and when the Beastie Boys blasted out on the radio, Kerrin took this shot. Well, I do introduce myself as a Tea Rock Star from time to time 🙂
I did another Google search and found an inTEAresting post about how the profile pic is more important than the cover page for Social Media, which I hadn’t really put much thought into before reading the post. It outlines several compelling reasons for putting thoughts into your profile pic rather than your cover page although admittedly, there were a couple of points that I did disagree with, but that’s just my personal opinion. In fact, going against the grain of some of the points the blog post made, I decided to use the rockstar photo on my Twitter profile.
I shall end this post with this mildy amusing post I found on LinkedIn which talks about 8 types of photos you should never use on your LinkedIn Profile. Enjoy.
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