If you're doing this, you need to stop it immediately!
You know those old photos you keep posting...
...here’s why that’s a bad idea.
I was online the other day and came across a social profile of a speaker with whom I’ve never met in real life.
I was impressed by the lifestyle portraits that I saw in her posts.
I mean, yeah, you know I’m checking out the pictures before I read anything! :)
Eventually, I did read some of her stories and her take on marketing sounded interesting. She also had an interesting service that I was thinking about purchasing based on a pretty convincing sales pitch.
We’re always learning, growing and evolving, right? So, why not.
Fast-forward a couple days and I’m chatting with another speaker colleague and brought her and her pitch up in conversation. As soon as I did, my colleague remarked, “You mean the one with the 10-year old photos?”
10 years old? Really?
My colleague went on to tell me that the speaker in question looks completely different in person and never posts anything current.
As soon as I heard that, it rubbed me the wrong way - and not because I’m a photographer who bristles at the idea of business owners not seeing the need to update their image content.
It’s because I immediately found myself subconsciously questioning whether or not the information that she shares in this service is up-to-date and legitimately valuable.
The moment that the question bubbled up in my head, I was spooked and immediately abandoned the idea of purchasing her service.
It was as simple as that.
Is she going to live or die without my business? Of course not.
But where there’s one, there’s others who feel the same way. And that can become problematic.
We live in such a noisy world online where people are finding reasons - ANY reasons - to say no, move on and find something else more appealing.
That’s why it’s important to offer your audience an honest look into who you are, who you serve and why you do what you do.
If you are hiding in any way, shape or form, that’s going to negatively affect the way you are perceived by the outside world, including those who could truly benefit from your specialized services and products.
Although you may think it’s not a big deal to post image content that is completely outdated, think again.
Sure, your image content has nothing to do with your programs, presentations and other aspects of your intellectual property.
But it does affect the trust factor you build with your audience.
You build relationships online with your audience through the photos and stories you share with them.
And, if those images and stories aren’t congruent with who you are as a person outside of your expertise, it’s going to raise some red flags.
It can get people thinking, “If you’re lying about this, what else are you making up?”
At the end of the day, business owners want to avoid raising red flags at all costs because that affects the relationship building process that will ultimately lead to sales.
Case in point, me with the speaker who uses severely outdated photos.
It doesn’t take much for people to pass on your services and products.
Keep that in mind the next time you want to post image content from 2 presidential administrations ago. It might seem like nothing to you, but then again, you’re not the one buying your own services.
If this article got you thinking about your own image content portfolio, and have some questions, don’t be afraid to reach out to talk about it.
Schedule a time to chat with me and let’s see if we’re a good fit to work together.