With the proliferation of social media interaction these days, and the fact that people really do turn to your LinkedIn profile to get a sense of who they are dealing with, a profile without a photo implies someone who is either

• Too lazy to load a photo
• Too incompetent to work out how to load the photo
• Hiding something awful that can’t be revealed by making the photo public

And it’s no good trying to claim false modesty.  It is normally quite attractive people who do so anyway.

LinkedIn is not a beauty pageant.  It’s a professional social network site where we are trying to build relationships of trust so that we can do business together.  Interacting with other people, who have profile photos while being without one of your own, is the equivalent of having a dinner party and you are the only guest with mirror sunglasses on.  You get to see everyone else’s reactions and emotions while disguising and hiding your own.  Now that’s just not playing nice.

A few tips to get your photo right:

• It should be of you.  In other words, not of you and your partner, no matter how much you love them, especially if your partner is the same gender – then it is next to impossible for viewers to work out which one of you they are connecting with.
• It should not be of your business logo.  That is for your Company Page.
• It should not be of your pets.   Gosh they are cute!  But no, we don’t want to see them.  And they have their own network.
• You should get someone else to take the photo for you and have a decent background.  Holiday snaps and t-shirts are for Facebook.   And don’t be tempted to take the photo yourself while holding the camera and pointing somewhere towards your face.  We can tell!
• You could change your photo every so often for fun.  But leaving it the same, especially the same across social media platforms, helps with recognition and branding opportunities.   You want to be top of mind and recognizable, not confusing people or overlooked because you seem to be new.
• Trust that you look good.  We almost all worry about how we look in our photos which means that everyone is more concerned about their own look than about how good you look, so don’t worry about it.  Put in a decent photo, update your profile and then do good business.  That is what counts in the end.

To learn how to load the LinkedIn photo, please see this post on our sister site at Social Media Solutions.