How to Optimize Your Profile Picture

You’ve probably heard of optimizing your business’s content to appeal to your target audience, but have you ever heard of optimizing your profile pictures to appeal to the right audience?

Whether it’s your social profile picture or a team photo on your website, the photos you use say a lot about you—and your business. And you want to make sure they’re setting the right tone to show your business (or yourself) in the right light.

The problem is that it’s not as easy as most people think to accurately judge your own photos.

For the purpose of this blog post, we’ll focus primarily on optimizing your photos from a professional standpoint, helping you determine what your business photos say about you and what you can do to change that.

Optimizing your personal photos is all about making sure they appeal to your target audience. For businesses, this means looking professional, approachable and knowledgeable about your industry.

The website Photofeelerhelps people see what other people are thinking about their photos. Users upload a profile photo and other people vote on your photo, ranking things like competency, likeability and influence. The point is to see how others perceive you based on the photos you choose to represent yourself, either in social profiles or in a professional setting, such as LinkedIn or your website.

Sure, a lot of people use this tool for their social media or dating profiles. But as a digital marketing company, we wanted to see how we could use these results on a professional level.

We tested a few of our own team photos to see how they were perceived by others from a business perspective. Here’s what we found:

Overall, all three of use scored highest on likability, meaning voters perceived us as friendly and trustworthy. Bryan and Justin scored second highest on influence and lowest on competence, while Jackie scored second highest on competence and lowest on influence.

Voters also have the option to leave comments on your photo, giving you constructive feedback. For our team, the comments revealed that we had great smiles, but that we might want to consider more professional attire. This gives you better insight into your results and helps you figure out what you can adjust to achieve the appearance you are going for.

However…

The comments also helped us gauge the importance of what we should change and what comments we can ignore. A comment that appeared on both Bryan’s and Justin’s photos was that voters would prefer to see the picture “cropped differently.” This is a simple fix that we can keep in mind when choosing our photos, and one that definitely has merit.

On the other hand, the comments about dressing more professionally weren’t what we expected to hear, given our line of work. Since we work in digital marketing and are often behind a computer instead of meeting with clients every single day, we get to dress more casually than many other businesses. Although our line of work is typically casual, this was a wakeup call for us that not everyone has the same perception of professional attire.

So what some perceive as unprofessional is really just a difference in industry norms.

This was just one example of how these comments and votes require a bit of interpretation, and that each should be taken with a grain of salt. Some industries require a certain appearance and others don’t. It’s always important to dress nicely, but remember that not everyone needs to wear a suit to be a professional.

Bryan, who tested his profile picture with Photofeeler, decided to do a second test with another photo of himself to compare results. The difference in results for the same person were astounding.

It depends on who you want to appeal to. Are you looking for an appropriate professional headshot? Or just a new profile picture for social media or a dating site? The medium you’re posting to will ultimately affect the photo you choose, but from a business standpoint, here are a few rules of thumb to follow when selecting your photo:

• Good lighting
  
• Appearance appropriate to profession (clothes/uniform, accessories, etc.)
  
• Friendly smile & eye contact
  
• Non-distracting background
  
• High-quality photo with a good crop
  

Test out different photos to get the results you want. If you’re looking to replace a business headshot on your website or LinkedIn, try changing your outfit, facial expression or background. If you’re looking to change your profile photo, try using a photo that shows you doing your favorite activity or surrounded by friends, family or your pet.

And if you’re still looking for ways to change up you photos, Photofeeler offers tips on several solutionsfor people who want to get different results from their profile pictures.

It’s easy to say “don’t judge a book by its cover,” but when it comes to viewing someone’s profile picture, we all make judgements based on initial appearance. That’s why it’s important to choose your photos, both on social media and your own website, wisely. People can, and will, judge you by the photos you pick to represent yourself.