Selfie Smile

By now you’ve probably heard that the Oxford Dictionary word of the year for 2013 is “selfie.”

What Exactly is a Selfie?
A selfie is nothing more than a self-portrait photograph that you share via social media.

There have even been a number of quick-to-arrive and quick-to-go fads when it comes to posing for selfies. “Duck face” is the term used to describe people who pucker their lips for their selfies (usually young women trying to look like Angelina Jolie). But for those keeping track, there’s also the sparrow face (wide eyes, lifted brows); the frog face (tongue out); and the trout face (open trout-like mouth) — among others.

Should You Use The Selfie in Business?
I’m going to go with “No” on this 90% of the time for small businesses.

Let’s face it: most selfies are horrendous — the kind of picture only a teenager’s friends can appreciate. If you have a traditional small business and are thinking a duck-face selfie of you as the owner will somehow bring profitable attention to your business, well … it probably won’t.
However, there are exceptions. Sometimes selfies can be good. So let’s take a look at some times when selfies makes sense and can help your business:

Entertainers — If you are a musician or other entertainer-entrepreneur, your fans want to hear from you and they want to see you. The right kind of selfie can create a closer bond with your fan base. Go for it.

Professional personalities — If you are a professional personality like Chris Pirillo, and your life is your business — consisting of a constant stream of videos taken in your home of you because you are a figure your audience wants to hear from — then selfies would fit right in. Just keep in mind that long before the current selfie trend, Pirillo was videoing himself. His YouTube channel has nearly 6,000 videos — most with him in them. Opening up his personal life is part of Pirillo’s mystique.

Professional speakers — If you are a professional speaker, then a tasteful, and I emphasize tasteful, selfie occasionally can be slipped in. As a professional speaker, you are your product. So images of your product — you — make sense. In all likelihood you have fans who want to know more about you as the person. Think creatively on this. Take a selfie showing you getting set up for your next speech. Or showing the audience over your shoulder. Just keep the selfie consistent with your image. If you are known as a speaker with gravitas, then a silly selfie would be out of character and diminish your image.

Authors — You’ve probably seen authors who encourage readers to submit a headshot of themselves holding the author’s latest book up. In this case, it’s the reader’s selfie you are looking for. Each selfie-with-book shows that the reader liked the book. Each selfie-with-book also serves as an effective way of “advertising” the book without it being an advertisement.

About LaraNet: We are a web design firm focused to help you to grow your business and communicate with your customers and prospects using two simple but powerful tools: 1) Interactive Website and 2) Internet Marketing Strategy on social networks like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc …
Whether you want to work with just a web page, or launch or improve your presence on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn or communicate with your customers through newsletters, or improve the location of your business in the search engines through Search Engine Optimization, or start marketing your products or services online, in LaraNet we can help you.

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