Wondering how corporate photos will set your social media profiles apart from the crowd? Social media is an excellent way to organically promote your business to your target audience.
Social media is an excellent way to organically promote your business to your target audience. More than 200 million users visiting at least one business page on Instagram every day. It’s become an essential platform for digital marketing. Instagram is a platform that is all about images. This makes it the perfect place to showcase your business’ corporate photography. Twitter and Facebook have also begun to embrace images in their algorithms. This means that using high-quality images on those platforms is also essential. Wondering how corporate photos will set your social media profiles apart from the crowd? Here are just a few of the benefits of corporate photography for social media.
Create an Eye-Catching Feed
Social media is all about instant gratification. These platforms thrive with eye-catching content. In other words, social media is not the place to be posting your wordy business statements! Because images are essential for social media, it’s vital that you optimize your visual feed. Using high quality, professionally taken images will give you a leg up on your social media platforms. Plus, it will force people who come across your profile to take notice.
Use Your Corporate Images as Social Media Ads
Social media posts are basically free (or very affordable) advertisements. Would you ever release an ad that featured grainy, poorly lit photos? No! Invest in a series of professional “action” corporate photos.
Give Off a Stellar First Impression
More and more customers are discovering businesses on social media. This is wonderful — if your feed makes you look good! Ensure that your social media feed looks professional and trustworthy by using corporate photography. This way, when new customers come across your profile online, they’ll be encouraged to stick around and explore your business in more detail.
Looking for a professional corporate photographer? Discover Morton Visuals today!
Thinking about taking some corporate headshots of all of your employees? While you’ve probably considered the style and look you want for your photos, you may have forgotten to think about the importance of timing. Find out how taking all of your headshots of the same day can actually make a huge difference!
Looking for corporate headshot tips? If your business is planning on taking a set of corporate headshots, you may be a little surprised by how many factors there are to consider. From outfits, to backdrops, to photographers, every decision will impact the way your team looks. Ultimately, this have a knock on effect for prospective clients who see the photos.
One of the most important (and most overlooked) corporate headshot tips is to ensure that your entire team is photographed on the same day. While this may sound like a bizarre tip, it will mean that your collection of headshots has a unified look. Plus, this will make a huge difference in the quality of your final shots!
Pro Corporate Headshot Tip: A Unified Look Creates an Instant Air of Professionalism
If you want your business to come across as trustworthy and well-established, remember that your headshot gallery matters. When prospective customers look at your employee photos, they will make instant judgements based on the quality of their photos. A high quality photo suggests a high quality professional — and a high quality gallery of photos suggests a high quality team. By unifying all headshots in the same style, you’ll instantly make your team look like a professional, reliable unit.
One or Two Low Quality or Old Shots Will Instantly Reduce the Quality of All Headshots
If you’ve scheduled a photoshoot for corporate headshots of your team, make sure everyone is available. If even one employee is unavailable, you may end up with a series of photos that don’t match. Even if you hire the same photographer for another day, each session can have a slightly different look and feel. Remember, if one or two photos don’t match the others, you’ll actually lose the entire effect of the rest of the photos. In fact, the professional headshots will actually look less professional when placed amongst a few low quality shots!
One of the most important parts of running a successful business is finding new leads in order to grow your business. Whether you sell to customers to other businesses, generating good leads is crucial for business growth. If you’ve been struggling to convert your leads into actual sales, you may need to make some changes to your business. Using professional headshots for business leads is an excellent way to instantly improve your growth rate. Here are three reasons why.
Professional Headshots Build Brand Trust
If you want people to buy into your brand, you need to make sure they trust you. Brands that come across as reliable and professional are far more likely to draw in new customers. It has been shown that professional branding and imagery:
makes an impression
makes you memorable
builds trust
Trust is crucial, as it means customers and clients won’t only choose you once, they’ll choose you again and again.
“Fake It Till You Make It”
If you are a fairly new business, you may think that it’s best to wait till you’ve grown a little to focus on brand image. However, the reverse is actually true. The best way to grow your business quickly is to adopt a ‘fake it till you make it’ attitude. This means creating an ultra professional look for your business, including branding and headshots.
People Trust Individuals More Than Corporations
It has been shown that most customers are more likely to put their trust in individuals rather than in a faceless brand. By putting a face to the name for each of your company’s main players, you’ll help customers feel connected to the people behind the business, which will in turn, help them to trust your business as a whole.
Discover the professional photography at Morton Visuals that will put your business a step above its competitors.
Looking for some new corporate photos for your business? Why not try professional action photos that really show off your employees in their best light?
When you think of corporate photos, you probably imagine a series of bland headshots. However, corporate photography can also include ‘action photos’. Action photos show your team in action. Them doing what they do best. Depending on your industry, this may include a range of activities. Think images of a presentation, field work, or even an image of a team meeting.
Corporate photos should show that you are a team of reliable, trustworthy people. They make you look experienced and polished. With action shots, your customers will have yet another reason to place their trust in your business. They’ll get a glimpse into your team doing what they do best. Plus, you’ll instantly look like a company that gets things done!
Give Your Photos Real Personality
Professional photos show clients and customers what your team consists of individuals. This gives your business a personal feel. Traditional corporate headshots have a tendency to remove personality. With corporate action shots, customers will see unique individuals, making you more memorable.
Corporate lifestyle photography of CEO Susan Salka with her AMN Healthcare team.
Stand Out From Your Competition
If a potential customer is researching your business, chances are, they are considering other businesses too. Because competition is often fierce, it’s vital that you do your part to stand out. With professional action photos, your business will automatically out shine your competitors.
Curious to find out more about professional action photos? Take a look at some examples in the Morton Visual portfolio.
Struggling to build brand engagement with your clients and customers? Discover how the right headshot photographer can transform the way customers view your brand and keep them coming back for more!
In this day and age, it’s crucial to place some focus on brand engagement. In marketing, brand engagement refers to the relationships and attachments that exist between a customer and a company. Ever felt slightly guilty trying a different perfume brand? Or, maybe you always head to the same clothing website when you need new items, without bothering to look elsewhere? That is brand engagement in action.
Looking for a new way to improve brand engagement? Corporate photography might be just the thing you are looking for. Here are three ways professional photography can increase brand engagement.
Show Off Your Team in Their Best Light
With quality corporate photos, your team can be photographed in their best light. Professional photos will help you all to look your best. And good images will instantly make you seem more trustworthy and reliable. If you want customers to trust your brand, make sure the people behind the brand look like they know what they’re doing with corporate headshots.
Contribute to the Aesthetic of Your Brand
Every brand should have its own unique aesthetic. For a teen skincare company, it might be pastel colours and childish fonts, while, for a tech company, it might consist of sleek, monochromatic lines and modernist shapes. A good corporate photographer will make sure your headshots work with your brand’s aesthetic and contribute to its effect on customers. Subconsciously, your target audience will be drawn to your brand because of the way it looks — even in the corporate headshots!
Let Clients “Meet” Your Team
Professional photos of your team can help clients and customers to feel connected to your brand on a more personal and intimate level. For instance, when they email customer service, the response is far more likely to feel personal if the email comes with a photo of the employee responsible for customer service. By simply putting a face to a name, you will instantly help customers to feel a deeper connection to your brand.
Discover the customizable corporate photography at Morton Visuals.
Commercial Portrait Photography is essential. There is no doubt about it. Corporate headshots are amazing tools that are used to represent who you are, not what you do. If you establish a reputable business portrait, you can instill the values of quality with your potential customers.
Corporate Headshots
Professional corporate headshot
You have numerous studios to choose from. You can set up a mini studio yourself and make a professional portrait in no time, but if you want the very best results you should plan on hiring a professional headshot photographer.
For corporate headshots, you need to make sure that you’re using proper equipment, adequate lighting, with appropriate lenses. And you’ll want to ensure that the images match your company’s brand and style.
Corporate Meeting and Event Photos
Holiday party portrait
Corporate meetings and events can make for some good photos that paint a fun, dynamic, and strict picture of your company. It is important to photograph these events accurately. An event management company needs to be very proficient and smart about how they handle photos of these events.
Planning corporate meetings has never been a simple task but planning it the right way could lead not only to some fantastic portrait photography but to some improved business practices.
Corporate Offices
Almost all your corporate portrait photography needs are going to be taken care of in your offices. You need to know how to make the office a fantastic photography place. To make sure that you always have a proper photo option, you can utilize the services of a mobile studio. Either hire someone to do it or do it yourself.
Bringing professional lighting, tripods, lenses, and cameras is a great way to turn any place into a quick and efficient photo studio. The only thing left to do is posing, and that is best done on the spot.
Corporate Parties, Outings, and Retreats
Event photography is about people.
If you’re working hard or hardly working, it’s crucial to capture the experience of all corporate parties, outings, and retreats. These are not only good team-building opportunities but also prove themselves to give great photo options.
Photographing your parties and outings is integral to painting a picture of your business as a fun, modern, and progressive one. Numerous different firms offer their outing and party service to companies, such as this one.
Commercial photography
Commercial photography includes, amongst several other specialties, the following:
Food Photography
There are numerous different ways you can improve your food photography game. Soliciting the services of a food stylist, a professional photographer, and a prop specialist is a great place to start.
Food photography can make use of models to demonstrate the qualities of the food product. Finding a model for your food photography is as simple as contacting your local modeling agency.
Product Photography
The only way you can paint an accurate picture of your product on your e-commerce website is by giving it a good photo. A good photo paints a picture of reliability, trustworthiness, and quality. The product is mostly judged by the way it looks. You can’t touch or feel the product through the internet, so manipulating the visuals is a fantastic way to present it.
However, stores can have numerous products, and photographing them can prove to be very expensive. DIY-ing this method is far simpler and cheaper and takes only a fraction of the cost.
Interior Photography
Interior Photography is a science, and takes a lot of time to create. Time of day can be critical in many locations, adding (or minimizing) daylight as appropriate. That nice sunset shot of a building can only be taken at one time of day, and all other images must be scheduled before or after that key shot. Some spaces may need morning light or late afternoon light, depending on elements such as windows and what side of a building a space may be on. It’s important to allow for these variables.
Industrial Photography
Industrial photography, while not glamorous, is very important, fun, and challenges. Taking good industrial photos can be a challenge. Inspiration is key, and you need some excellent industrial photo subjects to make a good photo.
Safety is the number one priority when it comes to this type of photography!
Some common subjects in industrial photography are:
Welders working
Processing plants
Shipyard and factory workers
Gas terminals
Nuclear reactors
Machinery
Assembly lines
Brochures and Catalogue Photography
Brochures and catalogs are not that challenging to photograph but are essential to document. Marketing tools are very important, though! You need to keep a couple of things in mind when doing so to best showcase your skills and paint the picture of the catalog and brochure in a fun and friendly manner.
Benefits of Commercial Photography
Corporate and commercial portrait photography together gives a better visual presentation for the visitors.
Enhances your corporate image
They improve your corporate image, and these days, image is everything! Be it on your website or any marketing collaterals, good corporate image speaks more than words.
Be Active on Social Media
A fantastic way to enhance your corporate image is by utilizing the services of social media. Look at what Wendy’s has done with a single twitter account. With their new laid back and modern perspective on social media, they have documented the growth of 10% in a couple of months.
You need to get into this. Create an engaging conversation about your service or products, be active in your community, and you’re going to be a social media professional in no time.
Increases your brand awareness
Raising your brand awareness is integral to creating a long-lasting impression on your potential customers. Awareness is everything, and you should work to improve it in any way you can. Commercial photography is a fantastic tool that works for this like a charm. There are numerous ways to do this, such as this one.
Improves your brand eminence
Consider hiring a professional to photograph your team at events to enhance your brand eminence. You can post these pictures on your official website for better promotion.
Increases Sales & ROI
Innovative photographs drive consumers to your product or service, thus increasing ROI and sales. Sales and ROI are significant and should be improved in any aspect available.
Conclusion
While pictures and good commercial photographs might sound expensive, you can’t afford to have shoddy ones. Another important facet to highlight here is the photo editing which can add life to your images. Hire a professional photographer to improve your photos, and you will reap the innumerable benefits of excellent commercial photography, and get your business on the next level, while also gaining an edge on the competition.
For many years advertisers have taken advantage of lower pricing for generic stock photography for their marketing efforts, whether for print advertising or for website use. Professional photography costs money, and stock photography is cheap. But there’s a dirty little secret in the use of stock. You may have no control over who else is using the same image to represent their company. This can lead to customer confusion and marketing embarrassment. Just ask the marketing departments at Dell and Gateway computers.
In the earlier days of stock photography it was harder to track who else was using an image. In one particular season, both Dell computers and Gateway computers selected stock images for their back to school advertising. Unfortunately they selected images of the same model, in the same wardrobe, in front of the same building, from the same photo shoot. And the ads ran at the same time! It somewhat waters down your advertising message when the same girl appears to endorse your competition!
How To Use Stock Photography
So how do you avoid this type of embarrassment? There are two primary ways. One method would be using rights-managed (RM) images rather than royalty-free (RF) images, and the other would be to use custom photography.
Royalty-Free Images
RF images are by far the cheapest. They are sold to anyone and everyone, and you have no idea who else may be using that image. You may use an online source like Tin Eye (https://tineye.com/) to search for other websites hosting your same image. Alternately you may use Google’s Image search to look for the same thing. That will give you an idea of how many times that image is being used online, although neither may know of all uses of an image.
Rights-Managed Images
Alternately you may purchase RM images, which come at a higher price. The benefit of RM is that you can ensure that either no one uses that image for a set length of time, or at least that no one else in your industry uses it. Pricing varies based on how much exclusivity you want and for how long. This is usually considered to be the best compromise between bulk RF images and custom photography.
The Safest Solution: Custom Photography
The other option would be to contract custom photography by a professional photographer. There are numerous advantages to this option, although it will come at a higher price tag. You have total control over all elements of an image – colors, style, your own colors or branding, and more importantly the usage. A professional photographer can create images using your own employees, or models you select, and can guarantee that only you have the right to use those images. Further, the models can be contracted to not work (or have their images used) with a competing company. Recent advertising showing the former “Can you hear me now” guy representing a competing telecom beautifully highlights this problem.
What message does this give your customers when a (now) well-known spokesman leaves your company to go to the competition?
Custom photography can and will reinforce your brand, and over time build a familiarity with which your customers can relate. Is it worth it? Only your customers and accountant can tell you that, but (in my humble opinion) images that are created specifically for your company are going to resonate more, which should lead to a greater ROI for you and your bottom line. To learn how custom photography can help your company give Morton Visuals a call at (888) 239-6213. We’ll be happy to brainstorm with you and your marketing department.
William Morton photographs investment executives in downtown San Diego
Shooting professionally since 1991, William Morton has specialized in commercial and corporate photography for the last 9 years. Based in north Dallas, Morton Visuals offers professional business headshots in our studio or in the convenience of your own offices.
We want to ensure that you look your very best for your headshot session. To that end, we consulted with professional Makeup Artist Mary Erickson. Since Mary is a 30-year veteran in the world of commercial print and advertising, she has a lot of experience in this field. Recently retired, she now focuses on her highly successful professional makeup store. She lists her recommended tips below. (The photographer’s comments are added in italics.)
Headshots Preparation
Bring shirts with a collar as well as different necklines.
Women should bring at least 6 different tops to choose from. Men should bring several (3-4) different shirts, clean and ironed.
No sleeveless shirts for headshots.
No solid white (unless you’re covering it with a jacket or sports coat). If you’re very light-skinned you may want to avoid solid black.
Solid colors are ideal; stay away from busy patterns and busy prints.
Bring a lint brush or lint roller, since fuzz will show on dark colors.
Make sure your clothes are pressed and clean. Very few photographers have irons or extra time. Photo retouching on soiled or wrinkled clothes will usually cost extra. Bring your wardrobe to the shoot on hangers if possible.
Stay away from clothes with big buttons or ornaments that shine and compete for attention.
If you wear earrings they should be small. Keep jewelry at a minimum, because anything flashy will distract from you.
Men should be clean-shaven, and a recent haircut is recommended.
Whether your headshots are for your social media presence or your professional resume, present your very best image to your prospective clients or employers.
If you have any questions, please feel free to comment below.
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As a longtime professional event photographer, I am regularly hired to cover corporate events of varying scale, in most every type of venue – and under every type of event lighting. A large stage with multiple spotlights and huge projection screens on each side makes an impressive presentation, but just as often I find myself in a dimly lit hotel ballroom or a small meeting room with only recessed lighting. Sometimes the speaker will request that no flash photography be permitted, as it can be distracting – particularly if the speaker is looking at a teleprompter. But it’s only fair to advise my client on the effect of their lighting choices, particularly since it’s been ordered in advance and already set when I arrive. I’d like to introduce a couple of considerations for those organizing events.
Let’s examine two scenarios, beginning with a stage presentation. With a larger stage presentation there are typically two ways to light the stage. One possibility (in some venues) is to use ceiling mounted lighting, sometimes permanently mounted. The advantage is that the venue may have fine-tuned their lights to wash the stage evenly. However, the risk is that the lighting may be at too acute of an angle to properly light the person on stage, particularly in rooms with very high ceilings. Lighting that is too high will give that midday sun look, with the speaker’s eyes being in shadow and looking like dark holes. See the example image at left. Adding flash can help mitigate that issue, but that will only work for closer shots from right in front of the stage. And not all speakers like having a flash go off repeatedly right in front of them.
The alternative is to bring in additional spotlights on trees or trusses. This provides the ability to get the lights down lower so that it can illuminate the eyes of anyone on stage, particularly if on a tree. See the example image at right – the folks at Isagenix and CG Creative Studios do this exceptionally well. (See photo at right.) Trusses will do this if they aren’t too close to the stage, and they allow you to spread the light evenly. The drawback to this option is the placement of the lighting in relation to seating for guests. If the layout of the event permits it, I highly recommend this option.
One other consideration is backlighting. Speakers are often in dark suits or dresses and standing in front of black curtains. Photographing them from the front makes them blend in to the background. Note the photo at right. Although the profile shot makes the speaker stand out, you can see that he has no backlighting to separate him from the background. In the image of the speaker at the podium at the top of this article you can clearly see great lighting on his face and rimlighting behind. This helps separate him from the background in photos — in my opinion, a great improvement. (The crew at the San Diego Convention Center know how to do it!)
A good question to ask your A/V team is whether or not they will be able to make the stage lighting comparable to the projection screen(s) that may be on either side of the stage. Similar illumination levels will be easier on the audience’s eyes, and allow your photographer to catch images that show the speaker and the screen to which they’re referring. See the example at left. If they are able to use daylight-balanced lights, or gel the lights to be closer to the color of the projection screen, it will help. And I love it when the lighting engineer can tell me the color temperature of their lighting!
The second scenario is a meeting room or ballroom, usually lit with only downward facing recessed (or “can”) lights. This lighting creates hot spots directly under a light and comparatively dark areas in between lights. Anyone standing under a light will have the same dark shadows in their eyes and usually a bright (overexposed) forehead and nose. Definitely not a flattering look! Since this is typical for events with many breakout sessions in individual hotel meeting rooms it usually isn’t cost efficient to bring in lighting in all those rooms. But your photographer should be able to provide a well-placed flash to tightly illuminate the speaker without irritating all the guests. See the examples alongside this paragraph.
One other thing to be wary of is the popular colored light wash on the stage background, particularly if you have a light colored stage background. These lights are too often too bright, and will cause blown-out highlights in your event photos. More often than not the frontal lighting on the stage isn’t bright enough to compete with these colors, so a photographer isn’t able to expose for both ends of the spectrum. Exposing for the backlit subject will blow out the background, and exposing to show the color in the background will yield a silhouetted subject. If you are planning on this please let your photographer know – he or she may want to bring in additional flash to help light a dark subject on stage.
Since I’m being hired to cover an event it’s safe to say that the images captured are important, and will likely be used to advertise (and attract potential attendees to) next year’s event. Should your hire Morton Visuals to handle your event photography I would be more than happy to help you coordinate your lighting with the A/V contractor at your venue. After all, it’s in my best interests to do everything I can to help us capture great images of your event. Please feel free to email us with any questions, or feel free to post any comments here. And of course the sharing of this article is greatly appreciated!
In our previous post we discussed the value of photography. Today we will talk about about how you can acquire quality photography for your business.
If you need images for your business’ use, you can follow one of three avenues:
Take your own snapshot – Do It Yourself
Use a stock photo
Hire a professional photographer to create custom images (which only you will have)
The type of imagery needed and your budget can help determine which is the best course of action, of course, but there are a few considerations to keep in mind as you make decisions for your business.
Snapshots vs Professional Photography
Hopefully everyone can see a clear difference between the images above. The first image looks more like a dreaded driver’s license photo, or the “Employee of the Month” you sometimes see posted in a grocery store. The second image is clearly a studio portrait showing a person “in their environment,” and illustrates what they do.
The examples below show the view an audience member may get at an event versus what a professional event photographer can capture.
Stock Photography
Many businesses consider stock photography to be an affordable option, as stock photography prices have dropped significantly over the last few years. If you want a generic image of a telephone or a computer, or a random customer service operator, then stock photography may work. However you won’t likely find images of your employees, and it’s even less likely you’ll find images of your management team. Likewise with any public relations events – stock images won’t be of your event, or your people.
Stock photography is also pretty recognizable. It usually features ridiculously good looking models in perfectly pressed clothing, always in solid (and usually bright) colors. For this reason it’s less believable. And recent studies have shown that customers are 1/3 more likely to purchase based on an ad showing a real person rather than a stock model.
Stock photography is, by definition, stock – meaning anyone and everyone has access to use the same images. This can cause confusion, and embarrassment, when the same model shows up in ads for your competition. Don’t think it can happen? Check out this article on Stock Photography from the American Society of Media Photographers. It’s not just the small businesses – even giants like Dell and Gateway can use the same model in the same outfit and the same setting for Back To School ads during the same month. Oops!!
The girl pictured above is one of the most popular stock models in the world. See just a few examples of how often her image is used in advertising and you can start to see some of the confusion that could arise if your competitor is showing that she “switched to X brand” after your ad had run.
Hire a Professional Photographer
A professional photographer can ensure that you have high quality images customized to your exact needs, and images that only you will have. We have previously shared 10 Reasons to Hire a Professional Photographer, which is a great start. Key points are that a pro will have the experience and the means to ensure that your photo shoot is successful and meets your needs, on time and on budget. The pro knows how to make you look your very best, both photographically and with professional retouching.
The photography portfolios on this site show a variety of photography now available in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, including commercial photography, corporate portraits, and event photography . Another valuable resource that we recommend for photographic talent nationwide as the American Society of Media Photographers’ Find-A-Photographer database. The ASMP site allows you to search by geographic location as well as photographic specialty – and features many of the best professional photographers in the country.
Have any questions? Please feel free to give Morton Visuals a call (toll-free) at 888-239-6213, or email us. We’re happy to help! Have any comments or suggestions? Please feel free to comment here. And of course please feel free to share this article on your social media!
