Real Estate Agent Headshot: Tips

At first, a real estate agent’s headshot may seem like an unimportant element in your marketing efforts. You might even think that a failing agent headshot is not very common. However, once you check the social media accounts of a few agents in your area, you come across a lot of terrible headshots that seem like they are competing with each other to win the worst Real Estate agent headshot. A professionally taken, decent and high-quality headshot is essential for your business and personal brand to win you more clients.

Real Estate Agent Headshot: Why it Matters

Regardless of how bad they look, a poor professional headshot is bad for your business. Regardless of what a great agent you are and how well you help your clients, a poor headshot will ruin the first and the many other impressions to come that your clients will get from your photo.

Standards

Why would anyone want to work with you to sell their home when you can’t market yourself properly? In other words, you have failed to take proper photos of yourself, how on earth can anyone expect you to take proper photos of their listings? A photo is the first thing, your visitors will see when visiting your social media for the first time. Make that first impression count.

Tech-Savvy

Real Estate these days is very digital and its marketing is also getting more and more digital with the passing of each day. Being a tech-savvy agent is definitely a plus for clients. When you fail to have a decent photo of yourself as your social media profile photos what message does that convey to your visitors? Probably the fact that you are not good with technology.

Recognition

Another reason why you should have a decent headshot as a Real Estate agent is that you need to use it across different social media and you need to use the same one to help your audience recognize you easily. Of course, to serve such a purpose, you need to have a decent enough headshot worthy of being used across various platforms.

Real Estate Agent Headshot: Tips

Here are a few ideas you need to have in mind when going for that perfect Real Estate headshot.

Dressed to Kill

What you wear heavily depends on your target audience but there are some general guidelines. Regardless of your target audience, you need to look clean and tidy. You can be more or less formal or casual but keeping it neat and tidy matters. If you can go for the formal look and remember that what you wear says a lot about your confidence, professionalism, and brand. On the other hand, make sure you are well prepared for the photoshoot. Have your hair cut/dressed and make sure you look your best. Get professional hair and makeup.

Professional Photographer

Hiring a pro is always a better idea than having a friend or family member take your headshot. First, professional photographers have pro equipment that typical phone cameras can’t even come close to. Second, pro photographers know how to take the best photo. From the setting to lighting and finally, to posing, they know what they are doing. And finally, pro photographers can edit and process your photos to fix any imperfections caused by equipment or setting.

No Accessories

It is a common sight to see Real Estate agents taking their headshots, using their phones or computers in an effort to look natural. However, this way you will not be the center of attention in the photo and you will not be looking into the camera. It’s a distraction from what the headshot should focus on—you. On the other hand, it might look like you are into your gadgets too much.

No Cropping

You might love how you look in one of the photos you took with your friends or family. However, it is a terrible idea to crop a photo and use it as your headshot. It will look extremely unprofessional and in the best-case scenario, it will be far from ideal. Also, avoid using group or couple photos as your headshot since they will not tell the audience which one of the people in the photo is you./ You do not want to make it hard for your audience to get to know you.

Smile!

This one is a no-brainer. It is important to convey a sense of friendliness in your headshot. Your pro photographer will likely mention this but if they don’t, make sure you give your best smile to your audience. Some think that posing a serious face will show professionalism but in fact, that might deter people as you may come across as arrogant and not caring.

Multiple Shots

When taking your headshot, try to take a few different shots so that you can use them later for different purposes. You might need professional photos of yourself to be used on your marketing material like banners, etc. However, avoid using different photos for different platforms as you want to achieve easy recognition across different channels. Keep the other photos for other marketing material.

Be in The Photo

Your headshot does not have to be just your head. You can include your body in the photo and use body language to communicate confidence and professionalism. However, if you are going to use the photo on Instagram where the photo is too small, you had better stick with the head-only headshot. On the other hand, Platforms like Facebook, allow a full view of the photo whereas you can use other photos where there is more than your head in the image.

Recent Photo

The last but not least, is that you need to use a recent photo. If it has been a while since you last had a photo taken, it is about time you had a pro take a new one. Old photos will not represent you well and it might look different when clients meet you in person. If you have had changes to your looks from dying your head to growing facial hair, make sure you take a new headshot.