The Importance of a Professional Headshot and How to Prepare

Headshots are used frequently today on Web sites and in brochures to place a face with a name in business. Public relations practitioners often send them to television media when pitching clients for an appearance and we always include them with news articles about individuals. A great headshot for your business can be very beneficial. It can say; “I ’m approachable, I’m trustworthy and I’m a good person to work with.” A bad headshot can say, “I don’t care what you think of me or I’m too cheap to invest in myself or my firm.” So, the first piece of advice is to put your own digital camera away and invest in yourself. Good up-to-date headshots are important to have and have a shelf-life of four to eight years (depending on how often you change the color of your hair . . . ).

A photo shoot can be a fruitless venture if you’re not properly prepared. Here are some easy steps to follow in order to guarantee your photo shoot runs smoothly and to ensure you receive a desirable result:

• Show expression. Let your eyes do the talking. Smile if appropriate.
• Be versatile. Your headshot needs to appeal to many different audiences.
• The focus is on you, not what you’re wearing. Wear simple, solid-colored clothing. Avoid patterns or wearing all one color. Layering with a collared shirt or jacket allows you to look professional and vary your look easily from shot to shot. Refrain from wearing bulky jewelry or accessories that will take the spotlight off of your face.
• Show your “everyday” self. Wear your hair and make-up as you typically would any day of the week.
• Practice your facial expressions (smile, no smile, teeth showing, serious, etc) in a mirror.
• Have several color shirt and jacket options and bring them all with you on the day of the shoot.
• Get plenty of sleep the night before the photo shoot.
• Expect that the shoot will take one to two hours. Allow plenty of time so that you are not rushed or stressed.
• Remember that the photographer is a professional. He or she will use their skills and experience to best create a photo for you.
• Engage a hair stylist and make up professional so that you can look your best.
• Relax and have fun! Your picture will reflect that.

When it comes time for you to get your headshot taken, remember that it doesn’t have to be a stressful undertaking. All you can do is come prepared and be yourself. If you do your part, the professionals involved can easily create a pleasing visual for you.

New Technologies in PR: Audio Blogs

I've been doing PR now for more than 15 years and the tides are changing quickly! I recently got an iPod and am learning how to use it and I'm realizing that podcasting and audio blogs are really the wave of the future. I just learned of audioblog.com where you can go an pay a nominal fee to create your own audio blog. Now the question remains, how do we create audio blogs and make sure our target audiences are hearing them? There's already a lot of clutter so it really needs to be impactful. If you're going to create an audio blog, make sure you employ a strong marketing and public relations plan to get your target audience listening!

Bar Functions, Trade Meetings, Networking and More -- Getting attention in 30 Seconds or Less

Getting attention in 30 Seconds or Less is published in this week's Legal Intellgencer's Young Lawyers' Supplement.

Here are someexcerptss about things you should keep in mind:

. . . . It is up to you, the attorney, to communicate what it is that you do and you need to do it in 30 seconds or less. Some call it the 30-second commercial and others call it the elevator speech or pitch.

. . . . It's a short, memorable statement that tells others who you are, what you do, who you do it for and how it benefits others. It must be easy to understand and compelling enough to leave the listener wanting to know more. . . .

Your crisp, concise, and memorable introduction must state the benefits of working with you. . . . keep it simple, short and focused. . . . [Y]ou must first, know the audience with which you will be networking and second, create different introductions for different purposes, audiences, and venues. Your introduction to prospective referring attorneys is going to be much different than your introduction to prospective clients in a particular practice area.

Ask yourself the following questions when planning how you are going to introduce yourself:

-Where am I going (venue)?
-Who is going to be there (target audience)?
-What do I want to accomplish / get across to those in attendance (key messages)?
-What are the benefits of working with you?
-Why should the listener care?

. . . . Write it down, rehearse it, and time yourself. . . .

How website hits are different from number of visits?

I received this message from our graphic design partner, Ampersand Design. . . .

In general conversation, folks seem to think they mean the same thing - "Page Views". However from a web-log's point of view, and in reading web log reports "hits", "page views" and "visits" are very different things.

Hit - A hit is simply any request to the web server for any type of file. This can be an HTML page, an image (jpeg, gif, png, etc.), a sound clip, a cgi script, and many other file types. An HTML page can account for several hits: the page itself, each image on the page, and any embedded sound or video clips. Therefore, the number of hits a website receives is not a valid popularity gauge, but rather is an indication of server use and loading.

Page view - A page is defined as any file or content delivered by a web server that would generally be considered a web document. This includes HTML pages (.html, .htm, .shtml), script-generated pages (.cgi, .asp, .cfm, etc.), and plain-text pages. It also includes sound files (.wav, .aiff, etc.), video files (.mov, etc.), and other non-document files. Only image files (.jpeg, .gif, .png), javascript (.js) and style sheets (.css) are excluded from this definition. Each time a file defined as a page is served, a page view is registered by the log file.

Visit (AKA Session) - A session/visit is a defined quantity of visitor interaction with a website. The definition will vary depending on how visitors are tracked. Some common visitor tracking methods and corresponding session definitions:

* IP-based Visitor Tracking: A Session is a series of hits from one visitor (as defined by the visitor's IP address) wherein no two hits are separated by more than 30 minutes. If there is a gap of 30 minutes or more from this visitor, an additional Session is counted.

* IP+User Agent Visitor Tracking: A Session is a series of hits from one visitor (as defined by the visitor's IP address and user-agent, such as Netscape 4.72) wherein no two hits are separated by more than 30 minutes. If there is a gap of 30 minutes or more from this visitor, an additional Session is counted.

* Unique Visitor Tracking (cookie-based, such as Urchin's UTM): A Session is a period of interaction between a visitor's browser and a particular website, ending upon the closure of the browser window or shut down of the browser program.

Source (if you have trouble sleeping one night...) - http://help.urchin.com/index.cgi?cmd=gloss