Portrait vs Headshot - Why it Matters
Portrait vs Headshot - Why it Matters on LinkedIn
A portrait is often just a nice picture of someone, whereas a headshot has a greater power to draw a viewer in and make them "feel" something.
I see it fairly often, someone has a nice portrait of themselves as their LinkedIn profile picture. A portrait being a picture that shows the person from the waist up, or even longer.
The problem is, even if the picture is professionally created, its usually not much more than just a nice picture. For LinkedIn, and elsewhere online, we need to do better if we want to stand out from the crowd.
That's where a real headshot comes in, one from the upper-chest upwards. The first thing it does, especially in the small LinkedIn format, is it gets the viewer much closer to your eyes and your expression. That's where the magic starts to happen. Where your eyes and your expression make a viewer start to feel something, feel a connection, or get an idea of the kind of person you are.
To demonstrate, here are two images I created for the same person.
The first image is a portrait that was shot for a specific purpose, the second is a true headshot. While the first shot is nice enough, it doesn't come close to matching the level of engagement and connection that the second image creates.
If you're rocking a portrait as your profile picture, it's time to amp up your online image and brand with a real headshot.