In today’s digital age, your headshot photo is one of the most important elements of your personal brand. It’s what people see when they Google you, and it’s often the first impression you make. A good headshot photo can help you attract new clients and networking opportunities, while a bad one can do the opposite.

The modern headshot photographer

If you do headshot photography for clients, you need to be emphasizing in your marketing that these photos will not only be high-quality but that you will ensure it matches their branding.

Personal branding is all the buzz these days, and a good personal branding photographer will be able to help you create a brand that is consistent with your personal style. You want to make sure the photos that you take capture the essence of who the client is, and also look professional.

The headshot in the digital age

Headshot photos are used across various platforms these days. LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and Google+ are all great places to have a high-quality professional image. With the advent of more social media platforms and places where having a good headshot photo is important, the need for a good headshot will become even more important.

Which means the demand for a good photographer who also knows about the importance of branding in the digital age, will be in high demand.

Knowing lighting, composition, editing, and retouching is just the baseline now for a headshot photographer. If you want to surpass the competition in the future, you need to communicate that you take great headshot photos that also help with your personal brand.

More and more people are finding that it’s easy to snap a high-quality headshot with just their phone, so this is how you need to show your added value.

headshot photo with mobile phone

What does this look like

So what does “helping with their brand look like?” Well, it’s asking questions such as these in the pre-session consultation:

  • Where do you plan on using these headshot photos? (You want to uncover if this is for their Instagram, YouTube channel, LinkedIn, etc. This will affect how “professional” the headshot looks and the size you need to crop the image to.)
  • What brand image are you currently trying to portray?
  • Do you have any creators/personal brands that you look up to? (You can take a look at their social profiles and see how their headshot photo looks.)

Final remarks

A good photographer will help you in more ways than just taking a great photo. They’ll help you create a brand that is consistent with your personal style, and will make sure the photo looks great across various social media platforms. This is important in the digital age, where your headshot photo is one of the first things people see when they “look you up.”