Why Conferences Should Always Have a Headshot Booth

 

Many people often find themselves planning conferences, conventions, or other types of large meetings. In fact, over 270,000 conferences and 11,000 trade shows occur just within the United State every year. There are many things that are important in the construction of these events including location, programming, and marketing. The ultimate goal is to make a conference a positive experience for attendees that aids in their professional growth.

When planning a conference, the small details are extremely important. In fact, there are many things that conferences can do to enhance the experiences of their attendees. As a professional photographer, one thing that many conferences do that tends to have excellent responses from participants is having a headshot booth. Here are the reasons why I believe a professional headshot booth is something every conference should have.

Adds Value for Participants

People attend conferences because they find value in doing so. While a conference is great for the exchange of ideas, networking, and development of new knowledge, many of the things that stand out for attendees are tangible takeaways.

While you may use new knowledge to create a new initiative in your organization or refine processes, a headshot booth provides participants with a very valuable tangible takeaway – their own professional headshot.

If you think a participant won’t find value in a professional headshot, ask yourself when the last time was you updated your own LinkedIn profile photo. Professional headshots are something many people do not invest in, so providing an opportunity to get their own will be beneficial for attendees.

Excellent for New Professionals

While anyone attending your conference can benefit from a professional headshot booth, offering this service tends to be incredibly popular with new professionals. Those with only a few years of post-college experience under their belt and even those fresh out of college or grad school often do not have their own headshots.

Having a professional headshot booth is a great way to engage this unique segment of your attendees. Many conferences devote extra effort into this segment, providing tracks for new professionals, ways to engage them into the profession or organization, and exciting opportunities for mentorship. A headshot booth marketed heavily to this segment is a great idea.

If you are an organization wanting to help get the next generation of leaders engaged, providing things they need is the best way to do it!

Address Downtime

Every conference has downtime. Whether it is 30 minutes between presentations, time when an attendee simply doesn’t have anything they want to attend, or that time when the day nears an end, you’ll see many attendees sitting around on their phones and laptops.

Providing interesting options for things to occupy time during these periods is a sign of a conference that has their participants’ needs in mind. The key for an engaging thing for people to do during downtime is that it needs to be something that can happen quickly, one of the reasons vendor booths work well for this.

Having a headshot booth that is prominently located on a major walkway or concourse is a great way to provide an accessible and engaging thing for attendees to do when they find themselves with downtime.

Affordable

One of the biggest benefits about adding a headshot booth to your next conference is affordability. Contracting a photographer to shoot one headshot is worthwhile but also can be a bit expensive. Headshot booths are able to greatly decrease the cost per photo.

Because a headshot booth allows a photographer to take a lot of photos in an organized manner in a comparatively short amount of time, the result is that you are able to get a lot more from your money. For a conference planning committee, this enables you to provide great value at an affordable cost.

Whether you wish to pay for the entire cost of the headshot booth like most conferences or simply subsidize the cost for attendees, you’ll make a great decision. With many conferences spending money on fun photo booths, why not give your attendees something much more valuable for the price you spend?

Improve your Branding

Conferences want to be known as being receptive to the needs of attendees. Doing so can go a long way towards improving your branding going forward. Having a headshot booth for your conference is a great way to add to positive branding.

Attendees will always remember your conference when they take a look at their headshot. Additionally, they are sure to spread the word to others about where they got such a high quality photo. Additionally, you would be surprised what small things can do for repeat engagement. You may see attendees registering to return for years to come.

Increase Participant Knowledge

While a headshot booth by itself provides attendees with an important takeaway from your conference, you can also pair it with information to provide additional knowledge to people who come to your conference.

It is relatively easy to pair the presence of a headshot booth with a presentation about effective ways to utilize your headshot or something else focused on enhancing your personal branding. This is particularly the type of program that will excel in a new professionals’ track or can be aimed towards older leaders who may not have kept in touch with issues like personal branding.

Integrating some of the extra offerings into your conference programming is a great way to leverage their popularity to increase knowledge and engagement.

How Do ISetup a Headshot Booth at My Conference?

If you are wanting to add a professional headshot booth to your next conference, you simply need to reach out to a photographer. Many photographers like myself have the setup necessary to create a well-organized headshot booth for your event. If you would like to use my services, feel free to reach out today. Having a headshot booth at your conference is simply a must!

 

Five Reasons You Need a Professional Headshot for LinkedIn

With more than 774 million users, LinkedIn is one of the largest social networks and has become a critical part of the job search process. In fact, 40 million people use LinkedIn to actively search for jobs each week while 87% of recruiters actively use LinkedIn to identify talent.

With this in mind, improving your ability to attract interest on LinkedIn is important for those looking for jobs as well as those simply wanting to build connections or remain open for the right opportunity. There are a plethora of articles about various tips and tricks for navigating the LinkedIn environment. However, one of the most important things that I have found is the value of having a professional headshot for your profile pic. Let’s explore five reasons why you should have a professional headshot.

1.    First Impressions are Critical

Headshots have typically been relegated to niche industries such as acting; however, the rise of LinkedIn for recruiting and networking means that everyone now has an opportunity to put their best foot – or face – forward. However, most people neglect this aspect of their profile. Recent research found that 9% of LinkedIn photos are selfies and 15% cropped other people out. While fine for Facebook or Instagram, this doesn’t work great for LinkedIn.

The value of a first impression is an age old cliché because it is true. If you were to have an interview, you’d spend a lot of time ensuring that you look well-dressed, professional, and approachable. It is just as important to portray a similar image on LinkedIn. The first thing recruiters and potential connections see is your headshot. Why do you think organizations use professional photographers for business portraits and corporate headshots? It enhances the image they put forth.

However, there are so many things to consider when deciding upon a perfect picture. Things like lighting, background, positioning, and facial expressions all affect the vibe that a photo gives off. Hiring a photographer for professional headshots will ensure that a professional can walk through these variables and provide you with a photo that will help you standout and present a great virtual first impression.

2.    Headshots are Surprisingly Affordable

 When people think about hiring a photographer for professional headshots, one of the things that tends to make them skeptical of the idea is cost. After all, the thought of having a photographer come in seems like a bit of a luxury or excess to some. It must be expensive. However, these same people often have professional photos taken to commemorate other things in their life such as family portraits. Why is a business portrait different? The reality is that it isn’t.

 Additionally, professional portraits are often cheaper than family photos as they generally take less time and only involve one subject. Nationally, the average cost of professional headshots is $250; however, this cost varies substantially by region. Mid-sized cities and rural areas tend to be more inexpensive than larger metro areas. In Washington DC, professional headshot packages tend to average $425 but can range from $150 to $1,000. When looking at the cost, keep in mind that a good professional headshot will last for sometime, providing an extensive benefit for an infrequent investment.

3.    You Get Noticed More

 A good professional headshot not only gives you a better look but will also get you noticed. This means the likelihood of being contacted by a recruiter or simply having new contacts reach out increases. This can be an important benefit for all people but particularly those who work in industries like consulting, a popular area in Washington DC. When some of my friends began using a professional headshot, they felt like their LinkedIn was getting noticed more. As it turns out, this was not just anecdotal evidence but actually has research backing it up.

 LinkedIn’s own research has shown the power of having professional headshots. Pages with these types of photos were found to have 21 times more profile views than those of other users. Additionally, they received 9 times more connection requests and 36 times more direct messages. This illustrates what I initially stated – professional headshots really do have a significant effect on getting noticed. A professional photographer is able to cultivate an image that will appropriate convey professionalism: friendly, approachable, and knowledgeable.

4.    Your Credibility Increases

It may surprise people to find that LinkedIn has now been around for eighteen years. In that time, it has substantially evolved. In fact, many people would note that LinkedIn is no longer a social network but rather a social marketplace. This is because it has evolved from connecting professionals into something much more. Companies post content and positions while recruiters search out ideal candidates. Meanwhile, you can note whether you are open to being contacted by recruiters, view postings, and even share your own content. 

Why is this important? Because your credibility as a professional is even more important in this dynamic marketplace of ideas. Many people now use LinkedIn to share content and write their own original content. Thus, engagement is not just making connections or finding jobs but sharing your ideas and influence. Credibility matters a lot more in this environment. A professional headshot adds instant credibility to your ideas, meaning more people will engage. This, in turn, increases not only your influence but your own marketability. In the online marketplace, credibility is an important tool for enhancing reach, particularly to new audiences. 

5.    Establish your Professional Brand

One of the major buzzwords in the business environment in recent years has been the value of a professional brand. What is a professional brand? Essentially, it’s what is recognizable about you and your skills. So your personal brand would be your primary skills, experience, and expertise. Think about this as your elevator pitch. However, with a dramatic shift to online engagement over the past decade, your image is now a powerful aspect of your brand. Your image on LinkedIn will quickly become associated with other aspects of your brand.

Thus, you want a professional portrait in order to convey an image of expertise that is fitting with your knowledge and skills. Additionally, we know that our brains store things using a variety of sensory inputs. Thus, someone seeing your image – whether on a repeated visit to your LinkedIn page or when you walk in for the interview you landed – will make it more likely that the person quickly recalls your skills or the content your posted. A business portrait could enhance this recall, making it more likely that your professional brand is effectively communicated.

Final Thoughts 

I keep in touch with my clients who come to me to get a professional headshot or business portrait. They all have found that having a professional headshot on LinkedIn has greatly enhanced their engagement and the quality with which they can showcase their professional brand to others. After learning more about how people engage with images and how professional images enhance our presence on LinkedIn, I am more confident than ever in the importance of this investment. Professional headshots are surprisingly affordable given their value and will enhance first impressions, get you noticed, and improve your credibility. 

Who Needs Professional Headshots… And Am I One Of Them?

Do you need a professional headshot? If you don’t have one yet, it could improve your business prospects significantly.

The professionals who could see greater success from a high quality business headshot are not limited to one type of career path. Instead, there are many different people and professions who benefit from a beautiful new professional portrait to improve their working relationships, personal brand and reach new employers and clients.

Here are just some of those, and why…

Realtors

 

Realtors know that to seal the deal, they must be trustworthy, reliable and confident - and your corporate headshot is how you can show that to potential clients before you ever even meet them. In fact, it could likely be what makes or breaks whether new customers ever get in touch with you in the first place.

Medium to large organizations

If you are a leader in an organization with a number of employees, you know how important it is to stay on brand. When all your team have uniform, professional, high quality headshots, the same image is reflected of your company externally, too.

Self-employed entrepreneurs, artists and actors

 

Contrary to popular belief, corporate headshots don’t have to be so… corporate. Portrait photography allows you to communicate your story, showcase your talents and your personal brand - and that makes it an essential piece of marketing material for self-employed entrepreneurs, artists, actors and creatives of all kinds.

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