Your Photo is a Must Have for effective Social Media

Have you looked around lately at the online business/social networking groups you belong?  If so then you have noticed that there are a lot of people not posting their photo in avatars. 

Recently I looked into what was going on with this negative turn of events.

In the social environment, posting anything other than a person’s true photo is becoming a red flag for viewers to a possible deception or someone not being online for the same purpose.  Facebook is housing a lot of social predators and it seems to be growing.

Over in the business sector of social networking, LinkedIn, where Social Media all began, more and more people are opting out using the most trustworthy tool available online..their photograph.  I was working with a client and was showing her LinkedIn and noticed that more people there are starting to NOT show their face.  Incredible, since LinkedIn is suppose to be  use to be was the place to go to validate a business contact.

Interesting enough, I found that many of my contacts in LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter had changed from the professional headshot to either a logo, stock graphic or cartoon figure. Some just dropped using a photo all together.

So, again, it was time to take another few days out of my time to start the process of pinging people, skype-ing and phone calls to find out wtf took place.

Told Social Media Was Not About Them

It was interesting to find some of what I suspected was the reason for the change to logos or products was due to many of my contacts hiring mainstream PR and Marketing firms to take over their Social Media.  Out of the 60 contacts 22 moved to taking their instruction on how to use Social Media from marketing firms who obviously are living in the 80’s with their internet marketing.  They were receiving advice on their presence online should be all about their company, product, service or whatever and not about them. 

In asking how long they have been taking this advice and if they were getting the results they wanted all but one said they were not and were pissed  upset about the large amount of money they spent to get no improvement in new business from taking the Brand Only method of online marketing.  The one who said yes said he was getting more results but had to increase his customer service efforts to handle problems which offset his new business efforts by 10%..wasted his time.

All claimed to moving back to the more personal approvable to business development as soon as their contracts with the big box companies expire.

Had True Concerns

The other reasons I assume would be a reason many took down their photos had to do with the predator factor.  21 of the 60 had been stalked, hacked, scammed, spammed or deceived by someone online.  This resulted in them having to go into hiding by taking down their photos and in some cases pulling down everything on their social networking account but their email addresses.  The breakdown on these 21 contacts and where the problem originated was 10 from Facebook, 8 from LinkedIn and 3 from Twitter.

All reported again, they they will not accept advances from anyone online unless they have a photo of themselves in at least two places online.  Staunch measures, but you are going to see more and more online usage manifesto in the future.

Lame Reasons

The remaining contacts I talked to all had rather lame reasons for pulling down their photos.  They ranged from the vanity issue of not feeling they are photogenic to I wanting to express myself with a graphic.  The encouraging fact for me..unfortunate for them, was all validated their following of REAL people on all social networking had decreased and saw an increase following of weird characters, suspected spammers, linksters, quotes and known deceivers.

Most are going back to their photos and a few had brought down their photo to put up a new photo and did not know their photo was down.  I suggested for those who were feeling non-photogenic to look to using Photoshop..mostly in humor and not suggesting they needed it.  Just me mentioning to them how not having a photo made them look got them to change back to posting their photo.

There just is no way around it..Trust is what makes up the New Wave of Social Media.  Real People do not trust brands anymore, do not trust cartoon characters or pictures of a person jumping through the air.  What is trusted is honesty and if a real person who is online for a honest reason, be it for business or social, show their face there is a good chance you can trust them. 

So if you are one of the many changing to a brand in place of a self photo or just feel it is safer to not show your face, then you can expect to start seeing many of your loyal following rightfully disconnecting.  Come on!  Get real..show the world what you are made of by showing the world who you are…it will pay off. 

Let me know how I can help