It’s not uncommon to visit a profile on LinkedIn to see the person on a night out, drink in hand with a huge cheesy smile on their face. It’s easy to see why people go for a picture like this- they’re probably wearing their favourite outfit, they’d probably just had their hair done, or they were probably on holiday so had a great tan! Sure it’s a great, picture and a wonderful memory, but the question is: is an image like this suitable for LinkedIn?
In a nutshell- no. While the picture may look great, it’s probably just because of some of the above reasons, you will be far better off using a professional headshot for your LinkedIn portrait. Here’s five reasons why you should hire a professional photographer for your LinkedIn profile picture:
1: LinkedIn Is A Professional Platform
While an image like the above may be suitable for your Facebook or Instagram profiles, LinkedIn is very much a professional platform. With that in mind, it is very wise to portray a professional image, and the first port of call in this regard is your profile picture. LinkedIn recently published data that suggested a profile with a professional headshot gets up to seven times more views than one without.
2: You Look A Lot More Serious
Another great reason to have a professional picture taken for your LinkedIn profile, is that you instantly look more serious about your career. Someone that presents themselves in a professional manner on their LinkedIn profile is going to be a lot more appealing to prospective employees, as you will convey an image of professionalism across the board. You wouldn’t turn up to a job interview wearing your swimming trunks- so don’t be wearing them in your LinkedIn profile picture!
3: It Will Boost Your Confidence
This might sound strange but having a professional photographer work with you to produce your LinkedIn profile photograph will give you a pretty good boost of confidence. A professional photographer will make sure that you are looking your absolute best in your profile image and will help coach you to getting the pose and expression just right. A professional headshot photographer will do much more than just set up some lights and use a fancy camera- they will understand how to take the most flattering images of a subject, how to make them appear confident, and how to make them seem more approachable- all great qualities for a profile picture on LinkedIn!
4: It Will Increase Connection Acceptances
People buy from people. When a LinkedIn user receives a connection request, it’s much more likely they will accept it if the profile the request came from has a professional profile image- this is because they can get an idea of who that person is. A great professional headshot will portray you in a way that makes people more open to dealing with you. If you use LinkedIn for prospecting, a high quality, professional profile image is a must!
5: It Helps Support Your Brand
A professional photographer will work with you prior to shooting your headshot to make sure the images they take for your LinkedIn profile support your existing branding. This works in a number of ways- for example, one of our clients has a vibrant, orange colour palette, and we use this orange as a background for all of their staff photographs. This works particularly well on LinkedIn, which is predominantly blue and white, and although subtle, is getting an element of their brand out there to thousands of people every day. This also can apply to the tone of the image, a portrait of a florist who specialises in wedding flowers for example, would have a different tone to that of an image of a former special forces soldier who now runs a security company.
So there you have it, five reasons why you really should get a professional photograph taken for your LinkedIn profile. In addition to the five points above, booking in a professional portrait session will also give you a library of images to use across your other social media channels. Many business owners use other platforms, not just LinkedIn, to promote their businesses, and a small library of professional images will be sure to come in handy at some point. Equally the images may well come in use for industry publications, should you find your PR efforts pay off!
If you think it’s time for you to get a professional LinkedIn profile picture, get in touch with Headshot Company today. Our multi award-winning photographer has shot literally thousands of professional business portraits and will help you get the right image for your LinkedIn profile. Our corporate photography packages start from just £150, and include at least two fully retouched images, ready for use on LinkedIn straight away! We are based in Northamptonshire, but cover the whole of the UK, so it doesn’t matter where you are based.
Lastly, while you’re here, here’s a few examples of some of our professional corporate headshots that have been used on LinkedIn:
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