10 tips for a good Facebook profile picture

A couple of weeks ago I looked at what makes a good Facebook page welcome tab, so I thought I would follow that up by looking at the profile picture.

Your page profile picture is the image on the left side of your page and always stays there no matter which tab your visitors click on.

Facts on the profile picture:

• The space you have available is 540 pixels long by 180 pixels wide (of you aren’t sure what this is Facebook will automatically resize what you load up).
• You can change it as often as you like.
• The thumbnail for your page (that’s the little picture that appears next to your page posts in peoples’ newsfeeds and on the wall) is made from your profile picture.
• Every profile picture you upload automatically goes into a photo album called “profile pictures”.

Tips for a good picture:

• Make it eye-catching.
• Simple and clear is better than packing lots in – people shouldn’t need to squint to read things or see what it is in the image.
• Make it relevant, that means if your page is about a product include the product, if your page is about a service-based business show relevant happy customers or the service in action.
• Include your logo so that people know when they first visit that they have the right page – particularly relevant if you don’t have a welcome tab.
• If you include a phone number also include the area code, visitors might not realise you are in a different state to them.
• Make sure it matches the rest of your business’ branding, eg. if your business colours are red and pink, don’t use blue and green, etc.
• If you have a product-based business use it as a place to showcase your products and change it regularly so that people see the range you have. This worked really well on my Mocks page, and when we changed the picture people would ask, “Where do I buy that design?”
• If you have the photos tab showing on your page after you load up a new profile picture go and add a description – this is particularly relevant if you are promoting a product because you can add a link to where it can be bought.
• Get topical, eg. Christmas is around the corner, get a festive picture for the season.

I see some profile pictures that are really wasting what is prime real estate in the Facebook world, because your profile picture becomes your thumbnail and that’s what people see when they search – it’s all about first impressions and making it easy for people to find you. Have a really good look at yours; does it tell someone at a glance what you are all about or are they screwing their eyes up trying to read it?

Lara Solomon is the founder of Mocks, mobile phone socks www.MyMocks.com, founder of Social Rabbit – your guide in the world of social media www.Facebook.com/SocialRabbit and author of ‘Brand New Day – the Highs Lows of Starting a Small Business’. Lara’s business LaRoo was the winner of the NSW Telstra Micro-Business Award in 2008.

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