What is Photofeeler? They write “Photofeeler is a data science company. Our flagship product helps people land good jobs and life partners by optimizing their profile pictures.” As a professional photography company in Durham Region and Whitby I am going to show you the results from the BUSINESS side only – not the social and dating photo side of the application.
Photofeeler posits that your own friends and family are too biased to tell you the truth about your photo choice. Instead strangers are served your content to rate and the results are tabulated, along with comments you can write or choose from. As a frequent user of social media as a professional in this field this is true. I cannot tell you how many selfies, cut off chins, foreheads, filtered, over or under exposed, badly lit and completely unprofessional photos I see on business profiles across Facebook and Instagram business pages.
That distinction is important, because your business profile is not the same as your personal profile. Also, not all jobs need the same level of business profile shots – for example, a banker and a graphic designer at an up and coming agency often require completely different looks, styles and approaches. So for the purpose of my albeit short and sweet comparison note we are comparing these under the BUSINESS category in the application on Photofeeler.
The tool provides three areas by which your photo is rated by other users, these include what does the photo say about the person’s competency (COMPETENT), likability (LIKABLE) and influence (INFLUENTIAL). They also rate how many entries are needed to create a STANDARD sample so that you gather enough opinions. For a strong sample (20 seems to be the magic number here) we opted to gather 20-22 opinions for each option below.
So I ran two photos through the tool to see how my professional headshot (created by the amazing skills of Melissa Maahs Photography) did against a selfie I took the same day against the same wall with my iPhone 6. I let them both run through with the filters BUSINESS and my job title as PHOTOGRAPHER. The tests were run on the free option and ran between 3 and 10 p.m. EST.
Here are the results of the iPhone 6 SELFIE versus the PROFESSIONAL photo. Noting that the comments are by users and not professional photographers who do not know me or Melissa.
SELFIE (using an iPhone 6/rear camera)
This photo was taken on the same day, same hair, with my sunglasses on when we had finished up the shoot. I like that I could use the selfie against the professional shot to show the reactions they generated.
Comments:
- “This is kind of a bad quality photo considering you are a photographer…” ( I agree, this was a taken as a behind the scenes shot with my phone)
- “Great photo!”
- “Photo seems a bit unprofessional to me.”
Things to consider from the SELFIE example:
- The quality of the photo is less because the capabilities of the Canon camera far out pace my old iPhone 6 specifications.
- The image is a selfie, it is informal and I am wearing glasses (eyes are everything in a portrait as are catch lights).
- All the ratings are below average which is not the message I want to give current, potential and future clients about my abilities, skills and services.
PROFESSIONAL (Canon 5D Miii with 135 mm lens)
Comments:
- “Would prefer if they were smiling more.”
- “Great photo!”
- “Great photo!”
- “Great background!”
- “Photo seems professional to me.”
- “Nailed it!”
Things to consider from the PRO example:
- High quality execution by a professional who understands light, her gear and posing. This is why I use a pro when doing my headshots for my own photography business.
- The ratings now reflect the impression I want to give current, potential and future clients about my abilities, skills and services.
If you need help bringing your profile picture (see above) to another level connect with us via: https://trinitydesign.ca/connect-2/
Kirsten McGoey | Visual Storyteller
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