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LinkedIn, like any other social media channel, is a social networking platform. This means that people are networking with each other while revealing who they are and what they do. LinkedIn reminds you to do this when you log in by making sure your profile is 100% complete. Part of getting to 100% completion is uploading your picture, and here’s all that you need to know about why you should upload your photograph, sizing tips for a successful upload, and what could happen to your photograph if you’re not careful.
That’s right: Your profile photograph could be forcibly removed. Read on for more details.
LinkedIn Photo Advice #1 – Why Upload a Photo?
There you used to be some debate as to whether or not you should include your photo in your LinkedIn profile. The advice by some then was that including your photograph could mean that a company might not want to hire you because the fact that they saw what you actually looked like could be used against them in a discriminatory lawsuit. Everyone who commented on that blog post I link to above said there was absolutely no truth behind that argument, and I have even heard from some employment lawyers that many of their clients pass the task of sourcing talent to an impartial 3rd party, within or outside of their organization, so that there are no potential issues here.
Regardless of the above argument, there are many fundamental reasons why you want to upload a photo to your profile if you haven’t done so already:
- There are fake profiles on LinkedIn. A photograph shows that you are for real, and it helps establish your social media credibility.
- Why would you be on a social networking site and not display who you are? What are you afraid of? Not having a photograph means people may have a suspicious view of your profile. In fact, I list this as the 1st thing in my 10 LinkedIn Profile Mistakes You Want to Avoid post.
- A photo will help bring your LinkedIn profile to 100% completeness.
- For your personal branding, a photograph is essential. And as they say, first impressions mean everything, and often our first impression is a visual one.
LinkedIn Photo Advice #2 – What are LinkedIn’s Photograph Requirements?
This information actually comes straight from the source at Customer Support in Mountain View when I had problems uploading a photograph myself. Here are the requirements to pay particular attention to:
1. The file type is a JPG, PNG or GIF.
2. The file size is no larger than 4MB.
3. The pixel size is at least 80×80 and no larger than 4000×4000.
If you still have trouble uploading a picture, additional advice indicated trying to use a different browser than what you normally use.
LinkedIn Photo Advice #3 – Why Was My Photograph Removed?
My recent blog post on why your LinkedIn account may be suspended has been getting a lot of view as well as comments from those who suddenly found that they were locked out of their accounts for no reason. Imagine one day you noticed that your LinkedIn profile was naked, i.e. your profile picture was missing! I’ve never heard of this happening in Twitter or Facebook, but it does happen on LinkedIn.
First things first: I already mentioned why you don’t want to have a company logo or an irrelevant picture for your profile, so if you are still not using a personal photo, you may want to reconsider your strategy in light of the fact that your photo could be removed and your profile potentially “flagged” by LinkedIn. Otherwise, you may be asking for trouble.
The next thing that is worth mentioning is that anyone can go to a profile and, regardless of your connection status, and report to the “LI Authorities” that a photograph is either an advertisement (i.e. company logo), copyrighted material, inappropriate content, a misrepresentation, or “other.” This is probably the mechanism that alerts LinkedIn to “suspicious” photos.
It is worth noting that LinkedIn has a clear Photo Policy in its User Agreement:
LinkedIn provides the opportunity for users to upload a photograph to assist other members in recognizing that person. As a professional networking site, there are guidelines to determine which types of photos are appropriate. We consider a photo appropriate as long as it does not contain content that is copyrighted or unauthorized for public distribution and does not contain offensive content. Additionally, if your photo is not an image of yourself or does not contain an actual photograph, it is considered inappropriate. Your photo has been flagged for inappropriate elements and has been removed from your profile.
Normal users should not have any fear about the photographs that you use, but there are some people who like to use effects, like those you find on the Photo Booth application on a Mac or any picture-editing software, to make a statement about their personal brand. You see many of these types of profile pictures on other social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. LinkedIn, however, is holding rigid to its policy of “professional photos.” Even a gentleman who had an “Obamacon” of himself, the same profile picture that is on his Twitter page, recently had his photograph removed. I believe that the photograph definitely helps “to assist other members in recognizing that person” as pointed out in LinkedIn’s Photo Policy. Is it that disturbing that the picture had to be removed?
What do you think?
LinkedIn Photo Advice : The Why, What and What Happened?
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Troy D. White
Great info. I posted a sketch for a profile pic, and it was removed. Now I know why. Oh well.
Jorgen Sundberg
LinkedIn has such a tiny space for the photo so you have to make it count. A photographer told me to crop the picture just below the chin and just above the hair to ensure your face covers as much of the picture as possible. People trust you more if they see more of you apparently!
nealschaffer
Sorry to hear about that Troy, but at least you know now.
nealschaffer
Thanks for the advice Jorgen!
jonathan smithson
The best way to post a high quality pictures on your LinkedIn profile is to do the following off an original high resolution picture:
1. Square crop an image of your head (covering a bit of the chin and just above or below the hair line)
2. Change the image size using Photoshop CS4 (Image on taskbar > Image Size) by checking off Scale Styles, Constrain Proportions and Resample Image: Bicubic (Best for smooth gradients). Change the Resolution to 72 pixels/inch and the smaller of the width/height in cm’s to 2.82 (if you made a perfect square crop both height and width will be 2.82). This should give you an auto Width and Height of about 80 pixels.
Make sure you only resize the picture once off an original high rez photo and save/export it as a .JPG. When you crop a photo and resize it multiple times or export/save it as .GIF or .PNG file types the picture becomes pixilated/blurry.
Here’s the end result I came out with: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/jonathansmithson9
Hope it helps,
- J
nealschaffer
Thanks Jonathan! Good advice
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Kristi Ambrose
Honestly, I think its ridiculous you cannot have a logo as your profile pic. First off, I’m not trying to promote my business, my recommendations and profile do that for me. Second off, the type of business I run is via the Internet. No one needs to know what I look like or needs to go “hm, I don’t know that name, let me see the face”, because no one KNOWS what I look like. Nor do they need to. I certainly don’t want them to. Third off, I have been a member for almost three years and someone JUST now reported me. Bravo to you Mister or Misses pathetic. You don’t have anything else better to do with your life than to tattle tale on me? Pathetic. Just pathetic. Honestly, I social network everywhere else, so right about now I am about to delete my linkedin profile. I don’t need it that bad.
Neal Schaffer | Social Media
Hey Kristi,
Sorry to hear about what happened. I wrote that blog post giving advice for how I think people can make the most effective use of LinkedIn, but obviously the decision to show your photo comes down to a personal one.
As for the tattle-tells on LinkedIn, that is too bad that your account got reported. Considering that there are so many fake profiles on LinkedIn using fake stock image photos it is a shame when REAL people get reported. I hope your situation gets rectified as it would be a shame if you deleted your LinkedIn profile…
Clutterknives
My profile picture on my linkedin is a picture of my long haired akita, Bhodi. However, when I sign on at roadrunner, to comment, Facebook has been knocking my dogs picture out, and replacing it with my Facebook profile picture. When I sign in on RR forums, I want the dog picture, not my Facebook profile picture. How can I fix this problem. It worked fine for months, not suddenly, I got this mess.
Neal Schaffer
That is a weird issue … it sounds like the RR forums have perhaps integrated their forums with Facebook. Try signing out of Facebook and then logging into the RR forums and see if that helps. You can also try to change the email registered with either Faecbook or RR to something else to try to end the synch. Let us know how it goes!
Jayne
Sorry, but there is no way in Hell that I will have my picture plastered all over the Internet, just because I want to preserve my privacy. I don’t do online dating for the same reason. Since when is wanting to preserve your privacy suspicious?
Neal Schaffer
Hey Jayne, not putting your photo on your LinkedIn profile is purely a personal decision where there is no right or wrong answer. It also comes down to what you objective is for being on LinkedIn. If you just want to keep in touch with old friends – and you want to preserve your privacy – I almost think you should stay away from any social media website.
Andy
Neal, you can participate in social networking and still preserve your privacy. Attaching a photo for some is just a step too far though.
Neal Schaffer
I agree that you can preserve your privacy while still being active in social media. The issue, though, is what your objectives might be for utilizing social media. If you want to make a deep connection on LinkedIn for your career or business, having a photo will be much more effective.