SHOULD MY LINKEDIN PROFILE PICTURE BE IN COLOR OR IN BLACK AND WHITE?

🇺🇸You have your new profile picture ready to post, you feel super excited about sharing it but as you opened LinkedIn you realize that some of your peers have black and white profile pictures and your is in color? Does it really matter? What’s the best? 

Here are some guidelines to help you make that choice… because yes, there is actually no right or wrong. 

CONTEXT OF THE USE OF YOUR PORTRAITS

Your professional executive portrait is like your own marketing tool. 

And when we say ‘marketing’, it implies that tools or actions have to be well adapted to the target to have a full and efficient impact. 

So what you want to ask yourself, before choosing to put your professional headshot in colors or in black and white is ‘who is the target am I trying to reach?’.

For instance, If you use your corporate headshot on Linkedin because you are in search of a position in the luxury industry, or if you are using your portrait on your website because you just launched a very innovative high tech project… these are very different objectives. 

>> In traditional industries like law, finance, or areas where there is a historical ’savoir-faire’, like many of the high-end luxury brands, the black and white corporate portraits really fit the mood and the elegance.

>> In areas like communication, marketing, healthcare, and tech, a professional portrait in color is more relevant.

Professional portraits of Carole Juge : CEO of www.JOONE.com

WHAT ENERGY DO YOU WANT TO CONVEY

Through the fascinating color science, we learn that colors trigger emotions and feelings. 

So by choosing to use a black and white professional photo, you mostly use the emotions around the black (authority, elegance, sobriety) and the grey (practical, bland) and you miss the chance to trigger any other positive feelings through other colors. Feelings like expertise, power, balance, loyalty etc. 

So conclusion:

There is no right or wrong,

it just has to be relevant to the message

you want to convey on your professional headshots.

>> Learn more about

what colors to wear during your next zoom call

or investor meeting !