October 21, 2022

11 Tips on How to Make Your Social Media Profile Picture Stand Out

Your social media profile picture is a significant point of contact to your social media account, page, or channel in the social media verse. If you get it right, you stand out and possibly get more engagement, but you will be ignored or get less attention if you don't.

It's no news that we live in a social world where we constantly connect, network, and build our social currency online. You probably have gone through tons of social media profile pictures, and every time you see one, you form an impression of the person whose photo you see.

You make a split-second judgment decision of likeability, trustworthiness, attraction, or intelligence. You judge them in the same way they would you.

On Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram, people are constantly scrolling up and, in the case of Tinder, swiping left and right, choosing whether or not to connect with your content based on your social media profile picture.

Hence, your profile picture is vital to your business or personal brand online. It can impact your dating life, job opportunities, or business.

Thankfully, with cool profile picture apps like newprofilepic.com, it does not take much to fix. Once done, it can positively change your social media experience.

To help you get it right, in this piece, we will share 11 tips to make your social media profile picture stand out.

Let's begin!

1. Take a picture showing your face

Good profile pictures should show your face!

Seems obvious, right? Many people set up their social media accounts without showing their faces. Your face is a uniquely powerful channel of non-verbal communication, and displaying your face on your social media profile helps convey trust

When people see your face in your profile pic, it makes them feel more confident knowing there is a human behind the social media profile they can interact with.

An interesting fact we like to tag “one million Instagram images can’t be wrong” is a study published on Researchgate that states that photos with faces attract more likes and comments on Instagram.

Yet, many still get this part wrong in their social media profile.

Thankfully, taking a cute profile picture showing your face is attainable using our profile picture app. Try it out by uploading a photo you like into our profile pic maker.

2. Take caution in including your passion in your profile picture

Including your passion in your profile picture is not wrong per se. For instance, you may love cats or have a thing for skydiving, and you want your profile pic to show it. While those are great passions, including them in your social media profile pics is improper and should be done with caution.

Primarily, your profile picture isn’t the place to showcase your passion unless it is essential to your goal with the platform, and it has to be done right, taking the specific site into consideration. For example, you may risk adding your passion for dogs on your Instagram profile picture but not on Linkedin.

We suggest that you save your passion in the background image and let your face be the main focus of your profile pics across platforms.

3. Frame yourself

Ideally, people should see your face and a bit of the background when they see your photo. You can display your left or right side as necessary, but make sure the framing is appropriate.

If your profile picture headshot seems too far from the camera or too close, then it is wrongly done and does not help your online presence. Hence, to get it right, make use of Newprofilepic.com AI profile picture maker that can help frame your profile picture right, and using our profile picture editor you can remove background photos so that your face is the main focus.

4. Make sure you smile

A profile that has a smiling face may trigger likeability and conveys trustworthiness.

A no-smile picture makes your social media profile picture look like a passport which is the last thing you want to bring to mind on a social networking site.

A smiling face triggers more engagement. Hence, we suggest you add a personal touch to your profile picture by smiling when you take the headshot you want to use in your social media photo.

Thinking of taking a new cute profile picture for TikTok? Our TikTok profile picture maker can help you create that cool pfp.

5. Use contrasting colors

The Social stream is a scroll-up, swipe-left stream, and to stand out from the millions of other profile pictures or cause a person to pause momentarily to look at your picture, you should use contrasting colors.

You will see that most social media platforms are blue (think of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter). So when you want to take a picture, think of colors that complement the tone used on a specific social media platform. Good colors to complement blue are warmer hues like yellow, purple, red, and orange, which can help make your social media profile picture stand out.

For other platforms like Instagram, research shows that Images with blue as the primary color perform 24% better than those with high concentrations of red and oranges.

Hence you might want to consider using blue on your Instagram profile picture. You can use our Instagram profile picture maker or profile image generator to create cool profile pictures for Instagram easily.

6. Use a simple background

You don't want to use an image background that distracts people from your face. As aforementioned, your face should be the main focus of your profile picture.

A busy background will distract people who see your photo from focusing on you. Hence, you should use a simple or flat background.

Using the example of the blue color that the major social networking sites use, it is best to think of warmer colors like orange in your profile picture background.

Warmer colors are seen to get the best results on such platforms. For instance, Cyrus Shepard, the Co-Founder of Zyppy, once tested the effect of background color on click-through rates (CTR) and found that warm colors got the best results.

Considering the above, try wearing a basic colored shirt in your photo and varying background colors, too. You can play around with flat colors or gradients. Since gradients are not prevalently used, they can make you stand out more.

Perhaps you have a social media profile photo you love so much, but it has a background that distracts people from seeing your face. You don't have to change the picture altogether; change the background using our picture background removal in a few clicks.

7. Test your profile picture with a focus group

Before you finalize on the aesthetic profile picture to use, a great idea is to test the pictures with a focus group.

For instance, you can upload cute profile pics to PhotoFeeler to choose a LinkedIn profile picture. For less than $20, you will get some honest, unbiased opinions from one hundred people about your photographs within a few hours.

You can also earn credits when voting on other people’s photos.

To try the site out, quickly use our profile picture maker, like the Facebook profile picture maker, to create some profile pictures you would like to get an opinion on.

8. Get a bit of your brand into your photo

When you represent your company or your personal brand online, it is essential to get the profile picture right to bring out the best representation of yourself and your brand.

There are some ways you can achieve this. First, you could wear your brand colors or put the brand color in the background of your photo.

Alternatively, you could try adding a small logo to the corner of your image or a larger logo in the image background.

Lastly, represent yourself and your career or interests!

For example, you can hold your favorite musical instrument if you are a musician. Or, if you're a photographer, grab your camera.

This is the only case it is okay to include your passion in your profile picture for social media.

9. Use the same headshot on all your professional profiles

While Facebook and LinkedIn are not similar regarding their target audience, it isn't a bad plan to use the same profile picture across each social media platform, especially if you represent your personal brand.

Staying consistent with your profile picture can help people following you to find you easily across each network.

For example, let’s say you exchange chats with someone on Google Hangout, and then you decide to connect with the person on LinkedIn, but they seem to have a prevalent name. Assume there were over 300 people with the same user name in the result list.

If the person has one photo on their Google account and uses a different avatar on LinkedIn, it would be challenging for you to connect with them. But using the same avatar would make it easier to recognize them, thus helping you maintain a potentially fruitful relationship.

Consequently, we advise you to select your best profile picture and stick with it across social platforms, so you don't lose potential networking opportunities. Finding one photo that will work for each network can be challenging, but you can do it.

With our AI image creator, you can make a good profile picture that will work for you across each platform.

10. Do not change headshot too often

When you change your profile pictures too often, it impacts recognition significantly. If you want to show how dynamic you are, save that for the content you post.

Profiles that keep the same profile picture for at least a year or two are easier to become recognizable than those that change theirs every other week.

11. Use a pro photographer

When most people think of their profile pic online, be it TikTok, Instagram, or LinkedIn, very few think about using a pro photographer to help them get that perfect headshot.

But if you are serious about your brand's online presence on social media, finding a professional photographer to take your headshot is best.

You might have to part ways with some money, but the investment will be worth it. The difference between a professional photo and an amateur one is huge.

When we mentioned that you should find a picture that you can use across all platforms, a professional can help you take high-quality images that you can use on all your social media platforms.

Alternatively, using our profile pic creator, you can create a professional photo for your profile. Our app can edit photos and give you several options to use. It can also help you size your images appropriately for each platform!

Conclusion

Thank you for reading to the end of this post. We hope that you enjoyed your time learning how to make your social media profile picture stand out. Take note that your profile pic online is one of the first points of contact for your online presence, so it is best to take time to get it right.

As you read this, someone you'd like to connect with is scrolling through a social stream filled with faces. Perhaps they scrolled past yours.

Hopefully, when next they see your face, you will have implemented what you learned here and get them to slow down, stop, and connect with you.

Why wait when you can get started right now?

Create a profile pic try our app