You can’t network on social media without a headshot. Here’s why.

I’ve been thinking a fair amount about head shots lately. Since adding my “Story-Based Head Shot” service officially to my website, I have started to notice just how much head shots are underestimated by business people.  Today I ran into something that I wanted to point out.

I met a lovely woman last night at a networking event.  I wanted to connect with her further, and so this morning I went to LinkedIn to see if she has a profile.  I searched for her name, and only one result popped up.  Bingo!  Usually, this is the perfect outcome because it’s very simple to determine whether or not that single result is a match for the person you are trying to find.  However, the woman I met last night was selling beautiful jewelry.  I didn’t ask her if that was the only business she owns.  The result that came up when I searched for her was this:

It is vital to have a current headshot if you are networking on social media

I’m quite sure this person has not thought about the impact of having a graphic as an avatar.  Like many of us, she probably doesn’t feel she photographs well and decided to upload something that she finds inspiring to represent her instead of uploading her picture.  The downside to this, though, is that since the business listed here does not match the business that I saw represented last night at the event it means I have no way of cross-checking to determine whether or not this is the woman I am looking for or not!

So what will I do?  I might send an InMail to this person and hope it’s the right person and that I’m not just going to end up bugging someone who has no idea who I am.  Or maybe I will just drop it.  If I choose to drop it, and it is the person I met last night, we’ve both just missed out on an opportunity to make a new friend and business ally in a difficult business world.

This is just one of the many reasons it is important to have a professional, current headshot that represents you and your business.  Over the next few weeks, I’ll be continuing this series, adding examples that will help show why you need to just bite the bullet and get a headshot – for the good of your business.