There are very few companies today that can operate successfully without solid promotion and of course a good web site. It is your shop window and likely your only chance to make a good first impression.
It’s a must!
With proven statistics showing that consumers react more positively to original, engaging imagery, your credibility and success are at stake.
Having inconsistent and poor quality visuals sends the wrong message and can be deadly for your brand.
Here are my Top 10 Do’s and Don’ts in Corporate Photography.
DON’T Have unprofessional photos of your products and locations!
There is no room for ordinary photography here, average and boring, bad angles, poor techniques, amateur and cellular IPhone photography, often taken at the wrong time of day, this looks unprofessional and is a huge turn off for your site visitors. Your credibility is at stake, this lack of commitment toward your brand and product leave your visitors underwhelmed, doubtful and quite possibly surfing elsewhere.
DO Showcase your prime assets!
Hire an expert; good photography goes beyond having a good camera. The right professional photographer makes all the difference, with style and experience; they will understand your brand and bring it to life. Using the right equipment and techniques like time exposures, HDR, professional lighting, and postproduction optimized for Web; your customers will see the difference and your client retention and engagement will surge.
DON’T Have a patchwork of styles for your staff photos!
What are you saying about your ‘team’ when every second photo is different than the last? Photos with different backgrounds, different cropping and with a mixture of lighting from different photographers, do not reflect well on your credibility. You don’t have to be a visual expert to recognize that the message received is that your product or corporation appears unprofessional and without a unified direction. Your team appears as a bunch of individuals with either a high turnaround, or having nothing in common. Certainly it shows a lack of effort and care by the company your visitor is considering doing business with.
This is not the brand message I would want emanating from my web site!
DO Develop a consistent style, aligned with your brand for your staff photos.
Your staff photos are an important element of your corporate communications; they must reflect the style and tone of your brand and web site. Some natural variation is intended, but there should be a unified style in both lighting and the environment in which the photos were taken. People should dress accordingly, look natural, and be positive and engaging. Based on having seen many bad examples, I would not leave this task to any photographer; you need someone who specializes in corporate and especially people photography. Knowing how to promote your brand while lighting people properly and effectively, having the ability to find the right expressions is a talent that not every photographer excels at. Do your homework!
With years of experience, we excel photographing people, offering many effective solutions; we have earned the trust of the most demanding corporations. For example, updating existing imagery and introducing new team members can be problematic for continuity; we develop and maintain certain unique styles and backgrounds for many of our clients to bring consistent visuals to all their communications.
DON’T Have out-dated photos.
Corporate communications have to be accurate and transparent! Unless you are an antique shop or a museum, when people in your team have obviously outgrown their web site photos, it reflects badly on your brand’s credibility. Any photo that exceeds 5 years old is stale and pushing the expiry limit in my opinion. Understandably actors and models refresh their images at least every 2 years. All personnel working directly with clients, for example; sales associates, lawyers, financial service professionals, brokers and others should follow the same timeline and keep their image current and accurate.
DO Keep your images fresh, update regularly.
A large company could have a photographer visit several times per year, if you have 10-20 people on your site, planning a half day photo session every 2 years is the absolute minimum to keep things fresh and up to date! Developing a good relationship with a trusted experienced professional photographer will add stability and consistency to your images. Working with someone regularly, who also understands your needs and methods is a huge time saver, an efficient workflow that helps everybody!
Our Annual Plan keeps your images and brand current and with things like cloud based sharing you have complete access to our services, and allowing us to manage all your visual content efficiently.
DON’T Think the photographer can read your mind!
Proper planning makes a huge difference in keeping our clients satisfied and creating something unique for them. If your photographer thinks the priority is on formal portraits but what you really wanted was more of a reportage style, you won’t be happy! So be specific with what you would like and hope to accomplish, as well as things you want to avoid. This is crucial for an efficient and productive corporate photo session.
DO Communicate your needs with the photographer!
An experienced professional corporate photographer should be flexible and able to make the right decisions based on your needs. That said, good communication goes a long way to getting the results you expect. By using visual references pulled from the Internet, or perhaps from your’s or the photographer’s web site, you can ensure you are on the same page. Based on this clear visual style, the photographer can properly plan the locations, lighting and equipment requirements, having a firm idea of the timing and the amount of people to photograph and any specials needs that he should be aware of. If you need a group shot or an image has to be cropped to fit a banner on your web site, we need to know! Good corporate communication goes a long way!
DON’T Ignore the importance of quality images for Social Media!
Most companies today cannot ignore how well Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media platforms connect them to their audience. Yet so many companies overlook the opportunity to engage their audience by also sharing more of their story, milestones and other newsworthy events. While spontaneous and natural images taken with phones are sometimes fine in these mediums; what is more troubling is that so many great opportunities are wasted due to the lack of proper imagery. Too often, bad quality, dark images, people in less than optimal environments with inappropriate expressions and situations can’t hit the right note with your audience and end up not being usable, opportunity lost. Nothing says “we don’t care” like a bad image.
DO Use great social media visuals to showcase your Story, your People and Products!
Make an effort to share your company’s important events and milestones. These can be charities, anniversaries, highlighting employees who participate in their communities, showing how your products are making a difference. Simply working with competent event photographers who know how to communicate your message and optimize your content for specific platforms will do the trick. Secondly, share your products in real life settings , especially on platforms like Instagram where overly blatant sales attempts are counter-productive and even frowned upon. This should not be left to the guy in the office just bought that new camera; well produced, brand focused, professional images with great lighting, style and vision go a lot further in broadcasting your message and keeping your followers engaged.
Our Annual Plan with cloud based sharing certainly keeps your images accessible and current, it also allows us to manage your own visual content efficiently. We can quickly resize/optimize/retouch content provided by your organization as well as deliver our own content directly and efficiently to you and have them ready for broadcast on all your Social Media feeds.
