3 Reasons Corporate Headshots Aren’t Enough to Build Your Brand
Why Your Small Business Needs More Than Just Headshots
Are you waffling between getting basic commercial headshots or a full brand photography session?
If so, this post is for you!
First, let’s clarify what basic headshots are and how you’d use them.
A corporate headshot is a formal image of a single person’s head and shoulders, taken while they look directly at the camera. Headshots can be taken in a studio setting or outdoors but generally involve a neutral background and a lack of props or movement.
Professional headshots of you and your team members are helpful in many instances, such as:
- About or Team pages of your website
- Company directories
- Professional profiles such as LinkedIn
- Email signatures
- Photo business cards
While corporate headshots are a valuable asset, most small businesses need more than posed head-and-shoulders shots to tell their story.
As images play a larger role in marketing, many brands realize the value of having an entire stock of custom images. Does brand photography require a bigger investment than headshots alone? Yes. But is it worth it? Also yes! Having a diverse set of storytelling photos at your fingertips will do things that headshots alone just can’t.
Here are three critical reasons many small businesses and entrepreneurs choose to go beyond the headshot.
1. Your Website Visitors Need to See More Than Your Face
Sure, you’ll use your headshot on your website, but modern web designs require so much more than that single image. Enter: brand photography.
Your website template may rely on full-width banner images that have to make a major statement. It probably also has pages dedicated to your products, services, or process. You could try to find stock photos close to what you need. But seeing you at work at your actual workplace feels so much more authentic than seeing a stock photo model in a sterile, staged room. Brand photography allows you to capture the perfect images for every page.
Using branded images throughout your site shows your personality, gives a peek at your process, and helps visitors know, like, and trust you. Building connection through the words and images on your site prompts people to book a call or make a purchase.
2. You Want to Create a Consistent Brand Image
When you have a range of branded images to draw from, you can create a cohesive look across all of your professional materials and digital channels. That level of consistency matters. You’ll immediately appear more professional. Beyond that, people will start to remember and recognize your business more easily after repeatedly seeing the same style of imagery.
Social media is a place to get a lot of mileage from commercial photography. While you may not be on every social media platform (God, how exhausting would that be?!), you are probably on at least a few. Even though a headshot may be perfectly fine for your profile image, people want to see more than just the same still image of your face on their feed.
Social media is all about engagement, and brand photography offers another chance to highlight what you offer, what you care about, and how you do what you do.
Cell phone images can work in certain situations. But, having professional shots woven throughout your content can up your professionalism and help you shape brand perception. Branded images can be pulled into content creation tools like Canva to create post graphics, reels, and banners that are unique to your business!
3. Brand Photography Can Help People Envision Themselves as Customers
Headshots alone can’t communicate your process and story. But if you have a stock of images of your team at work, your product being made, or your service being delivered? That will go a long way to building trust with your audience.
A headshot allows your audience to see the face behind the brand.
Brand photography goes further and allows them to see themselves as customers.
You can show things like:
When someone likes what they see, it boosts confidence about choosing you over a competitor.
If you’re ready to tell your brand’s story through dynamic, vibrant images, I can help.
Learn more about my approach to commercial photography, and then book a call so we can get to work!
