A huge thanks to John who volunteered for this ‘before and after’ in the studio recently. As soon as he walked in the door for his headshot session I couldn’t help but think that these photos would be great to use as an example of why it’s important to show up online in the way that we want people to see us.

Sometimes in business we want to share both our personal and professional sides with our audience – it’s a way of engaging with people and showing who we are and what we’re about when we ‘clock off’ at the end of the day. This often applies to entrepreneurs and business owners whose brand is all about them (but can sometimes still be heavily curated).

Most people though just want to show their professional side online, because when it comes to their personal brand that’s the only way that they want to be seen. If that’s you, are you showing up online the way you want to? Does your personal brand reflect what you want people to see? Viewers only need a few seconds to look at your image and make a judgement call about who you are. And they do, which is why we should all be taking our personal brand seriously.

How are you showing up?