What does your social media profile photo say about you?
There are lots of styles of profile picture: “me, travelling”, “me, doing sports”, “me, a long time ago”, “not me, my kids”, “not me, a pretty picture”.
To be taken seriously on social media though, you need a profile picture where we can see your face, and the quality of the photo is somewhere between ‘completely dreadful’ and ‘too professional’.
The problem for a lot of people is that a selfie isn’t good enough, but you don’t want to pay for a professional headshot. Well, I’ve got 3 solutions for you, and the last one is my best kept profile picture secret.
1. Professional Selfie
Use a tripod, and great natural daylight. Full instructions here: ‘How To Take Your Own Profile Picture”.
2. Crop, and switch to black and white
Crop out distractions, and use a photo editor (Lightroom, PicMonkey, iPhoto) to turn it black and white. It can make an OK photo look 100% better.
3. Use a video still
Video yourself being animated. Look straight into the camera. Then take a screenshot of a still in the exact pose you like. You will only use it at low resolutions, so the small file size will be fine.