LINKEDIN PROFILE PHOTO: COLOR OR BLACK AND WHITE ?

You have your new Linkedin profile picture ready to post, you feel super excited about sharing it but as you opened LinkedIn you realise that some of your peers have black and white Linkedin photos and your is in color?

Does it really matter? What’s best? 

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Here are some 2 guidelines to help you make that choice.

1 - 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 portrait in color or in black and white is ‘who is the target am I trying to reach?’.

For instance, If you use your business headshot on Linkedin because you are in search of a position in the luxury industry, or if you are using your professional 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.

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

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2- WHAT ENERGY DO YOU WANT TO CONVEY ?

Through the fascinating color science, we learn that colors trigger emotions and feelings. It's is a very important tool used in PR & communication (example: the color of the tie of a politician)

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 (blue), power (red), balance (character) 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.