When I first invented it, people were not taking selfies with their arms.
A lot has changed since 2006 when Canadian inventor Wayne Fromm filed a patent for what became the 2014 product of the year—the Selfie Stick. In 2013 the Oxford Dictionary proclaimed “selfie” as its word of the year. I recently wrote an article about a local company that uses drones and learned about dronies—selfies taken by drones. This begs the question—are selfies only for teenagers on Instagram, or are they useful for your brand image?
How you can benefit from selfies
If you are an introvert, the idea of taking loads of selfies might lead you to say “Eww—do I have to?” But if you are on the Internet or in business, you have a personal brand. The most authentic way of showing your personality is to have a photo of yourself on your various online (and offline) profiles. The good news from the glut of selfies is that one good photo of yourself does not make you a narcissist. Just the opposite—it makes you human.
Digging deeper. A recent article by Chris Gayomali in Fast Company gives some great practical tips on creating a professional personal brand. Here’s one that I appreciated:
Get a new headshot... you’ll get 14 times more profile views if you have a photo and if you want to be taken seriously.