Brainstorm Your Brand: Brand Photography

The Importance of Photographs to Your Brand

Fifty Mil­lisec­onds. One 1,000th of a sec­ond. That’s the time it takes for most peo­ple to make up their mind about whether to trust a busi­ness they see online. So, every­thing you post or share has to POP!

That’s why it is imper­a­tive you have the right brand pho­tographs to con­vey the right mes­sage to the right peo­ple at the right time. The images you choose to share with your audi­ence are as impor­tant to your brand as your vision state­ment, mis­sion state­ment, col­ors, and logo. With­out the right images to tie it all togeth­er quick­ly and eas­i­ly, you’ll find your­self los­ing your audience.

In this dig­i­tal age, folks don’t have the patience or the time to spend ‘surf­ing the net’. We want splashy images and videos to move our research along so we can make up our minds already about our next big purchase.

Today, we’re going to dis­cuss the impor­tance of brand pho­tog­ra­phy to your busi­ness. Let’s get started.

What the Heck is Brand Photography Anyway?

Brand pho­tog­ra­phy is a port­fo­lio of pro­fes­sion­al images that visu­al­ly define your busi­ness. Beyond head­shots, these pho­tos fit with your visu­al brand iden­ti­ty by incor­po­rat­ing the fea­tures of your brand, like col­ors, tone, and props in set­tings that fur­ther define you and your business.

A brand pho­tog­ra­phy shoot should include pho­tos of you, your team (if you have one), your prod­ucts, your process, your space, and any­thing else that makes your busi­ness stand out. These pho­tos may be staged to a degree but should be authen­tic to your vision and mis­sion state­ments.

Don’t shoot what it looks like. Shoot what it feels like.

David Allen Harvey

So Why is Brand Photography Important?

We live in a visu­al world. Research shows our brains absorb images faster than the writ­ten word. So, the images on your social media accounts and web­site are crit­i­cal. The pic­tures and videos you share bring your brand to life. Peo­ple need those images to gath­er the infor­ma­tion they need to make the deci­sion to do busi­ness with you, or not.

You want your pho­tos to evoke an emo­tion­al con­nec­tion for your audi­ence. That emo­tion­al con­nec­tion is what it’s all about. It lets your audi­ence get to know you. Beyond that, it tells the sto­ry of why you’re in busi­ness and what you can ulti­mate­ly pro­vide for your cus­tomer. You want them to feel con­nect­ed to you and to believe you are the one who can pro­vide them with the trans­for­ma­tion they seek.

How Can Brand Photography Build Brand Recognition?

Cus­tomers are nev­er just buy­ing a prod­uct or ser­vice. Ulti­mate­ly, they’re buy­ing an expe­ri­ence. And they must trust who is giv­ing them that expe­ri­ence. Brand Pho­tos and videos deliv­er a con­sis­tent sto­ry and solid­i­fy that trust in your busi­ness and cap­ture that expe­ri­ence for your cus­tomer. This is what will set you apart from others.

Estab­lish­ing your visu­al brand cre­ates a loy­al com­mu­ni­ty of fol­low­ers who grow your busi­ness organ­i­cal­ly through ‘user-gen­er­at­ed con­tent’ aka reviews and shares.

Who Will My Audience See?

As a micro-busi­ness own­er, you are the face of your busi­ness. So, what cus­tomers see first, cre­ates their first impres­sion of who you are and shapes their deci­sion on doing busi­ness with you. And you want to make a strong first impres­sion. Hav­ing a qual­i­ty head­shot will do that for you.

A qual­i­ty head­shot does not have to be dull, though. If you are a doc­tor, lawyer, or CPA the usu­al chest-up busi­ness suit against a neu­tral back­ground is prefer­able. How­ev­er, if your busi­ness is more laid back, get cre­ative. Have your pho­tog­ra­ph­er take head­shots in fun and inter­est­ing places and use dif­fer­ent pos­es. Let your inner super­mod­el take over. Make sure that your head­shot gen­uine­ly rep­re­sents you and your business.

In addi­tion to your head­shot, give your audi­ence a behind-the-scenes look. Show off what goes into cre­at­ing your prod­uct or ser­vice. These pho­tos will be great to put on your web­site, but not just there. Your brand pho­tos should also be all over your social media. They should be includ­ed in blog posts, paid ads, newslet­ters, busi­ness cards, just every­where. Pho­tos show­ing peo­ple in them make it real for your cus­tomer, 82% are more like­ly to trust you and 77% are more like­ly to buy from you.

How Valuable is Brand Photography?

It sounds cliché, but, “a pic­ture is worth 1,000 words,” is truer today than ever. Hav­ing your visu­als work togeth­er with your mes­sag­ing cre­ates the con­sis­ten­cy you need to set your­self apart from every­one else. Cus­tomers want con­sis­ten­cy in their expe­ri­ence with you. As a mat­ter of fact, 90% of cus­tomers expect it.

The images on your web­site and social media add val­ue to your audi­ence. They tell the sto­ry of your com­pa­ny, its vision, and mis­sion. These pho­tos and videos will dri­ve results and help grow your brand.

Where Do I Start?

1. Get your sto­ry togeth­er. Have a clear vision and mis­sion state­ment. You also need to know exact­ly who your audi­ence is and how you want them to feel and think about your brand. Be clear on what you want your visu­al brand iden­ti­ty to be. The more spe­cif­ic the better.
2. Have an idea of the shots you want. Before you get start­ed have a basic out­line of the types of pho­tos you’ll need. For exam­ple, your head­shots, as well as any­thing else you want to include. These might be can­did shots of you work­ing, prod­uct pho­tos, or even more casu­al fam­i­ly snapshots.
3. Find a pho­tog­ra­ph­er. It’s impor­tant that you feel com­fort­able with the pho­tog­ra­ph­er you’re going to work with. This will make it easy for the pho­to shoot to flow nat­u­ral­ly. If you don’t know a pho­tog­ra­ph­er, ask some­one. Or even Google brand pho­tog­ra­phers in your area. You want this to be a fun expe­ri­ence. You may need to inter­view more than one before you find the right photographer.

Hav­ing qual­i­ty pho­tographs that set you apart from your com­pe­ti­tion and tell the sto­ry of your busi­ness becomes your visu­al brand. That visu­al brand is vital to cap­ture your tribe’s atten­tion and turn them from casu­al browsers to out­right rav­ing fans.

Leave me a com­ment with any ques­tions. Also, if you want to share, I’d love to hear how your pro­fes­sion­al brand­ing pho­to shoot goes. Wish­ing you much hap­pi­ness in your unique journey.

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