#LinkedIn Profile Picture – Do me a favour, let me see your face.

I don’t tend to go on rants very often on my blog.  I like to think of myself as a blogger that will give you an honest opinion and solid advice…  balance observations with funny stories that may teach you a thing or two …but today… well, today it is just an all out RANT.

I love LinkedIn. It is my first true love.  When I first got started using social media, I played with Facebook and dabbled in Twitter but LinkedIn spoke to me.  I have been evangelizing LinkedIn’s virtues for years (yes, years).  The thing is, as it grows in popularity, many users still don’t understand that it is a professional networking platform.  So by token you must put forward a professional profile and a professional picture. 

If you are going to send me a cold-call-invitation to connect with you on LinkedIn please fill out your profile so I can clearly see what you do and why I would be interested in connecting with you.  Court me a little, send me a welcoming note. Remind me where we have met, mention the presentation that you saw, heck tell me you enjoyed it and learned something. 

JUST DON’T SEND ME AN INVITATION TO A PROFILE WITHOUT A PROFILE PICTURE!

If you are going to be on LinkedIn and expect me to recommend you to my contacts please have a professional picture… flying through the air while performing a karate kick IS NOT PROFESSIONAL (no matter how cool you think it is -especially if you are a business professional and not a karate instructor).  I once pointed that out to an attendee at a workshop I gave.  He later sent me a scathing email about how unprofessional I was for pointing it out his unprofessional picture.  Listen, if you are embarrassed about me pointing out the picture of you flying through the air doing a karate kick in front of 25 other people, what do you think the other 110 million LinkedIn members are going to think?  It is a PUBLIC PICTURE once you put it on LinkedIn.  Seriously? You’re mad at me? Give your head a shake Mr. Professional VP (rant over on that point).

If you are going to use a logo instead of a picture, don’t be surprised if I DON’T recognize you at a networking event.  Social Networking is about being social.  Me looking at your company logo is not social…its anti-social actually. Even an avatar seems silly to me…unless you create avatars for a living…even then I would prefer to see your face.

If you insist on not putting up a picture and then at a network event I discover that Mackenzie or Robyn/Robin or Tracey/Tracy is a man and not a women (or vice-versa) please don’t blame me. I didn’t see your face on LinkedIn, I only saw a grey silhouette, a funny caricature or a logo.

Oh and another thing, if you think I want to see your buff torso or your cleavage prominently displayed on your profile pic.  Think again.  I don’t do business with attention getters with inferiority complex that feel that they need to strut their stuff (I warned you this was a rant).  Remember, the key to LinkedIn is to connect with other Professional in a professional manner.

So if you intend on reaching out to me, please introduce yourself and make sure you have a picture that I can identify as a professional in your field because if you don’t I won’t likely connect with you and ultimately, you are just wasting your time and mine.

RANT OVER…

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Note:  I found all of these pics on LinkedIn so they are public to all other 110 million users.  I tried to pick examples that were not connections to any of my connections and tried as much as possible to delete identifiable names and place of employment. If this is your profile and your embarrassed about it, I suggest you reconsider your pic. otherwise, send me a message & I will gladly take it down.