7 ways to leverage your employee headshots

When your company invests in professional headshots for your staff, the result is a win-win for everyone.

Not only can an employee photo album reinforce your brand as one of warmth, competence and professionalism, but the photos can separately be used to promote your people’s individual skills, services and accomplishments. And since everyone’s identities are so available by online search these days, they’ll appreciate the chance to be represented by attractive, well-designed images.

“The saying ‘Never judge a book by its cover,’ while charming, isn’t entirely plausible in the real world,” advises Jenna Arak on Careercontessa.com. “That’s why it’s incredibly important to always appear professional, both in-person and online.”

Promote your company image and help your employees boost their personal brands through these suggestions for leveraging employee headshots beyond your corporate look book:

• Websites: Talk to your website designers about how the images might be optimized throughout different aspects of your site(s). They could accompany employee quotes or testimonials, highlight blogs, appear in news items or highlight your career page to inform candidates on their points of contact.
• Employee ID badges: As security, privacy and safety become increasingly important in the corporate world, establishing personal identification for all employees can be crucial. Hiring a professional to create those images ensures they’re clear, focused, accurate and up-to-date.
• Social media: As you feature your staff in various social media posts, you’ll want to have well-designed headshots on hand to ramp up the visual elements. Use the photos to boost content regarding employee articles, accomplishments, presentations, upcoming appearances, testimonials, etc.
• Press releases: Instead of scrambling to take quick headshots when releasing company news to the media, simply draw from your comprehensive portfolio of digital employee images and email the key visuals.
• Business cards: Help your people stand out from the competition by providing them high-quality business cards that feature their images. Customers and potential customers will appreciate the visual reminder of who they’re doing business with, and a pleasant, smiling face can only reinforce personal branding. “People do business with those they like, know and trust,” notes Jason DeMers on Inc.com. It's much easier to like, know and trust a person behind the brand, rather than a brand itself. Wherever possible, allow prospects to see the people that power your brand.”
• Marketing collateral: Brochures and other printed materials that represent your firm are more visually appealing when they include attractive images of your key staffers. “Relationships are what stir business and make money, even in today’s world of blogging, websites and social media,” notes Aric C. Hoek on Solarisstudios.com. “People still want to interact with other humans, even if they’re hiding behind their computer screen or silently clicking on from their smartphones.”
• Internal communications: Depending on the size of your organization, your employees may not be familiar enough with each other to match every name to a face. You can reinforce recognition and encourage a sense of camaraderie by attaching headshots when making key internal announcements about the important people within your organization.

Lifetouch can seamlessly manage your in-house or off-site employee headshot campaign, handling everything from scheduling to employee communications to photography to fulfillment. Request a quote or find more information here.