We’re betting you never thought that so much calculation could be put into a profile picture on a social network, but what we’ve found is that if the image is right, it can dramatically increase the way you/your brand is perceived within the fraction of a second. After all, first impressions are everything in the real world, so why should online be any different.
Below are some of the key things we suggest focusing on when picking the right image to use for a profile picture.

Recognizable

If you are Nike, then we could assume that your brand would be easily recognizable with only the infamous iconic representation of the swoosh as your profile picture, but what about the rest of us. Most of our brands don’t have the luxury of an easily recognizable icon, so how do we make ours stand out. We believe the secret is consistency. If you are using the same icon as your logo on your website, the same icon on discussion forums, and the same icon for your profile pictures on social media, then you are reinforcing this icon in the minds of the viewer. It might not happen over night, but with time and consistency of seeing you in all of these websites, the brand will start to become an easily recognizable figure in the online world.

A good example of this is Jeffrey Zeldman’s infamous blue hat. Jeffrey is has become the godfather of web design and web standards for our industry, but its his early adoption to use this iconographic symbol of this royal blue beanie across all of the places that he frequented that made him easily recognizable whence you came across his picture in a see of profiles. He doesn’t use it as much anymore, but ask any seasoned web designer about what Jeffrey looks like and your bound to get a host of descriptions like “having facial hair”, looking very “new yorkish”, and of course, “wearing a blue beanie”. The industry has even adopted his trademark blue beanie as its icon for Web Standards Day.

Inviting

For most of us using social media to market to potential buyers, we’re eager to engage them and have them click on our profile and “friend” us. In this case, making the profile picture inviting is a no-brainer. So how do we make that happen? The most straight forward way is to put a face with the name. If you are a brand and you have a mascot, then this can be done by using a headshot of your cartoon friend. For companies without a mascot, we might use a spokes person like Michael Jordan for Wheaties or Bono for the One campaign. With this mugshots present in a sea of profile pictures, the user will be intrigued to find out more and will have a greater tendency to click on the picture and check out the profile.

Personable

At the end of the day, social media is about making personal connections. So if your profile picture is not personable and true to who you are, then the message your sending isn’t the right one you want out there. On the other side of the coin, you definitely do not want to make the picture too laid back. We don’t mean that personable = laid back. So in other words, don’t put a picture of you sunning in Cancun unless it absolutely makes sense to your brand and the message you are trying to convey (maybe a CEO of a tanning salon could get away with this one). If you are having a hard time of thinking about what your personality is, then come back and take a look at our Ingredients to an Online Persona post coming up later this week. It should clear everything up for ya!

Real

Putting up a profile picture that looks like it has been done at a Glamour Shots or professional studio doesn’t necessarily come across the way you would like. Often when users see a profile picture like this, they’ll feel it is too contrived, fake, and even possibly out-dated. vMake it real to you/your brand. If you are the smart-ass, fun loving, and always supportive type (like yours truly), then a profile picture that signifies this may include common hand gestures you do or a witty pose that thumbs its nose at contrived photos. If you’re a new brand on the scene and want to let people know about you, then think of the one word (we know that can be hard) that describes your brand and make the profile picture reflect that. I am reminded of the movie Crazy People with Dudley Moore, where he went crazy but ended up revolutionizing the advertising world by telling the truth in ad campaigns. “Robitusin, the sneezy, stuffy, how the hell did I end up on my kitchen floor medicine.”

Humorous

People love to laugh, so why keep your profile picture dry and lame? Use humor to bring out the best attributes of the message you want to convey to the user. To expand on the example we mentioned in the previous item about Robitusin. Now imagine a profile picture of a smiling face laying on the kitchen floor with the empty robitusin cup next to his head. Funny huh? Would it make you click on the profile to see more about what Robitusin had to say? Probably. Would it make you remember the brand when you’re walking through the pharmacy. Definitely!

This entry was posted on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under Online Visiblity, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.