Headshots time of year

Are you at the point in the year where you feel new headshots would be good for the business? All of us have pictures on various platforms that are a little bit out of date. I remember back in a previous life at a certain local authority and I remember seeing photographs and headshots of some of the councillors and represented members and to say they were 10 years out of date… it was more like 15 to 20! I met the people that were in the photo and didn’t recognise them, even though I’d already seen them on a thumbnail. That always sticks with me that on the likes of LinkedIn where you’re seeing only a small picture – it’s a recurring reminder of what somebody looks like. If your website or social platforms are a little bit out of date, you want people to know who you are. We’re all getting older, I know we don’t like to admit these things but if you haven’t seen somebody for 10 years and they look at you and go, “Oh!” It’s the shut door thing – as soon as you leave, the way peoples’ brains work, nothing changes after the person leaves the door and it’s the same with faces. I know faces from 10 years ago. If I saw them today I’d go, “Oh yeah, that’s such and such!” Because it takes that couple of seconds for your brain to latch into that.
Now that’s not saying that we should be updating pictures every day, month or haircut but I think two years is a good number that things change – whether that’s colour palette-wise or that’s style-wise or glasses even! A lot of people change their glasses regularly and certainly as a glasses wearer, people will often notice and say, “Have you got new glasses?” And I’ll say, “No, it’s just I’ve not seen you – I’ve had them for six months!”
I’m obviously a victim of this myself – my profile picture is probably 18 months old and it’s not really a profile picture in all honesty. I need to get Karl round to sort that out for me and get another one done. I think companies that do them regularly – as much as the staff don’t always fully embrace the fun of a photoshoot – as you can understand, most of the time it’s a bit of ‘arms up backs’ to get people to have their pictures done en masse – if you think about your website, most websites will be redone every two to three years so in my head photos should be done around the same time. The photos that you get done at one point aren’t necessarily the right photos that fit when it’s redone again.
Go now, have a look on your LinkedIn, Facebook and website – does that face really reflect who you are today or does it reflect who you were three, five or 10 years ago?