The perfect profile picture? is that possible!
- May 20, 2016
- 3 min read
The perfect profile photo. Do you influence your audience?…
It’s a conundrum. Is there such a thing as a perfect profile photo, probably not, but having a great professionally taken profile photograph is important and can influence your audience. Your presence in the digital world and in particular online social media profiles is fast becoming your digital business card. It is true, and as much as we don’t like to admit it first impression matter, we can read about the statistics for employment interviews and find decisions on how successful you’re going to be in the interview are made in seconds. Think about it, we all will tend to dress accordingly for an interview right down to wearing the right shoes. So why do we not take the same care and consideration for our online appearance.
Online your professional "business image" can have a similar affect. In the modern image driven world we may need to take a different approach to our online profiles . Studies show interesting insights into how our profile image measured and viewed online.
A recent study on profile picture attributes like, your competence, likability and potential influence have been measured in a very revealing survey. The results can help you recognise advantages you can gain from improving your profile particularly in social media platforms, whether you are looking to advertise your company on Facebook, twitter and Instagram or simply marketing yourself in platforms such as LinkedIn having a great profile image can make a difference.
Let’s look as few examples:
Smiling with teeth: This scores very highly in all three of the characteristics measured, it can show more about your personality, the study surprisingly reveals that smiling without teeth as in a closed mouth smile reduces your score for likeability as much as 30% but has no effect on competence and influence scores from an open mouthed smile…interesting stuff eh!
At Studio 121 I coach you to smile with your eyes too allowing closed mouth smiles to become more appealing in likeability score. Speak with your local photographer to see how they might be able to help you get the very best from your headshot session.
Sunglasses: You might think is offers a suave, mysterious look, but playing it cool can harm your brand image, hiding your eyes for a profile photo obstructs seeing who you really are and can damage your “likability” score significantly.
Clothing Styles: Bold and unusual colour matching of your clothing along with trendy unnecessary accessories tend to be judged as less formal, further down the scale to jeans and T-shirts,these were judge as “informal” not surprisingly.
Studio 121 recommends you chose a style and wardrobe that closely matches your own personallity and to consider if you have a “business personality”. Get in touch with your local photographer and find out if he or she can do the same for you.... its all about you after all.
Lastly and this is a difficult one since I happen to be a big fan of black and white portraiture.
Black and white or colour: The study reveals that there is no significant differences, however we feel black and white images tend to show a more intimate relationship, particularly with friends and family, depending on the message you want to send and the image for your personality or type of business you are growing you may wish to consider if a black or white image would suits you and or your target audience.
To see the full study report take look here, if you are considering the need to update your profile image read through the report and formulate some of your own thoughts, maybe contact your local headshot photographer in your area, book and appointment and have a chat, most of us will be able to help ensure your are sending the right message and influencing the right people.
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