Why your photo is such a big deal
There are many discussions about the importance of the photo in an online profile. And there is a piece of research we have done in 2011, triggered by a scientist who stated that a brain can recognize and construct the history of a picture in less than 1 Milli Second – well that’s a 100′s of a second. In short of you have a photo – more importantly use the same photo on all profiles you make it very easy to associate you, corresponding memories and stories within a blink of an eye.
We wanted to know more:
Here is what we did: We asked a few people to go through their Twitter friends as fast as they could. We used Friend Or Follow to “compose” a picture of the friends. Simply enter your Twitter name, click on friends and go. On a large computer screen you see approximately 180 small photos. Big enough to recognize a person – and small enough to get about 180 on one page.
Now give yourself only a few seconds to go over the list. You will recognize that your brain decides immediately who you know and who not. Those you know, the brain brings up memories, stories, maybe tweets and most likely the name. You will recognize some of the pictures are very clear in your mind – and with others, in particular from people with multiple different pictures, it is getting very fuzzy.
Just imagine reading a list of 180 people with only their names listed. Often some names are so similar that you won’t know who is who without reading more details.
What does that tell us:
If you are consistently using the same picture across all networks it is much easier to recognize you and brings you in context with stories and memories of the people who look at you. If you don’t and you use different pictures all over, not only you risk the recognition, but you simply make it harder for others to “read” your profile.
Make it easy for others to associate your photo with stories and memories they have. It’s not about you – it’s about your friends.
Marketers Know the power of an image:
Business executives and marketers spend an enormous amount of time to ensure their logo is 100% exactly as it should be, Even the smallest distortion or change in color makes them go wild. Why? Because any confusion costs loss of recognition.
We are people not logos
Yes – but our ambition to get known, our hunger for recognition and our effort for more popularity is not just a stupid ego thing – it is an inherited engagement in all living things called: natural competition based on the law of natural selection. And those who think of themselves “I am never going to make it big” indeed won’t because they mentally decided to never make it big. Everybody else is trying to perfect themselves wherever they can. And having the exact same photo on all occurrences is only one piece of the puzzle but a relatively important one :).
Checklist:
[ ] Select one photo you really like (or the one you like most)
[ ] If you don’t have any ask a friend to make some. Important: Ask him or her to do 25 shots – one after the other and then select the one you like most. 25 because there is always a closed eye, a fly on the nose, the mouth not right and and and …
[ ] Use a simple tool like Powerpoint and “crop” it to a square picture, copy it to Paint and store it in 200×200 pixel. Make one version 800 x 800 pixel so you always have a high res version as well.
[ ] Go to all your social media sites and add it to your profile. You can use “Quick Setup” to get there. Come on – of course it is a lot of work to do it all right but don’t you spend a lot of time already in the web?
[ ] If you have a XeeMe go through it and make sure you are well presented on all sites. Obviously that would be the fastest way and if you don’t have a XeeMe yet – a good reason to start.
[ ] Whenever you signup to a new site just go to any of your existing profiles right click the profile picture and select “Copy image location” or something to that extend. Store it on the new site and you are cool.
Axel
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