Before you ever open up for business or even begin to build your brand, you determine your products or services, your logo, and your mission. You figure out what you’re going to offer customers and how you’re going to provide it for them. Did you ever think about how professional brand photos also play into business?

As you build out your brand and create a website and social media profiles, you’ll want to have quality images to show any visitors what you and your brand are all about. The better the images, the more authentic and professional you’ll appeal to clients—and the better your chances at growing your business.

Professional brand photos can help you increase engagement by providing visual interest to your social posts, website, and paid advertising. These images are versatile—in fact, you may find new places to use them all the time.

Don’t wait to get quality images

You may use filler photos or texts while you’re building out your site, but the sooner you can have professional, high-quality images, the better. You don’t want to go live with your business until you have professional brand photos that show off who you are and what you do. Think of professional brand photography as an essential part of creating your brand. Having these images are just as important as having a logo and a mission because they demonstrate what your brand and business are all about. 

Work with a professional

A professional photographer will work with you to get the images you want to use to present your brand to the world. Talk to your photographer about your goals and vision for your company. Together, you can build a plan to create a library of images that you can use in the coming months as you work on starting and building your business. Check out this blog post where I discuss some questions to ask personal brand photographers before you hire one.

Keep your professional brand photos current

You don’t need to have your branding photos updated every few months, but at least once a year, take stock of where your brand is. Have you added new team members? Did you move to a new location? Are there new products or service offerings? If these or any other big changes have happened in your business, it’s a good idea to update your brand images so that you can update your website and social media profiles to accurately reflect where your company is today. (Check out Emiko’s website and some of the updated photos I did for her.)

Tell your story

As your company grows and changes, your photos should reflect that. Don’t use the same images that worked on day one. Instead, highlight the journey you and your business have taken to get where you are today. A good business is never stagnant, and you should mark your growth with new professional branding photos. One day, you may be amazed to look back and see how far you’ve come!