After The Bell: WhatsApp with your profile pic?

How much time in your life you have spent working on how you look before a business transaction?

I’m not talking about the big meeting where you negotiated the billion-dollar mining merger. I’m talking about before you go into an office, or as you’re on the way to a client, or perhaps just when you’re about to meet your team.

I bet you spent a moment or two somewhere – in the rear-view mirror, in the lav perhaps – just having a quick look. It must be one of the reasons so many corporate lifts in Sandton have mirrors – it gives you a moment to just do a quick check.

Now, of course, we do a lot fewer face-to-face meetings. We are always talking on Zoom (if you’re poor and cool) or Teams (if you’re rich and corporate).

During the pandemic the fact that people could only see our faces led to a huge uptick in cosmetic surgery. It even caught academic attention.

But all of us, virtually without exception, use WhatsApp.

The variety of the images we use to portray ourselves in our WhatsApp profile pic continually astounds me.

I’m lucky enough to receive hundreds of WhatsApp messages a day. And while it can be quite frustrating, it does at least give me the impression of being connected and a part of dozens of little villages.

There is the kids’ lift village and the old schoolmates village and the street village and the extended family villages. And that’s before all of my work villages which are all fascinating in their own right.

But have you ever gone through a big group and looked at the images people use to first show themselves to you?

Many are bog-standard pics of a face or slightly more of the person. Others have a picture of themselves with their significant other.

I’ve noticed younger people who are more likely to be in the opening and happy throes of a relationship are likely to appear with their partner in their profile pic, to display their relationship.

Some even have a picture of just their partner. That can be more than a bit confusing, especially if the partners are of the same sex!

I’ve noticed that many mothers with daughters just old enough to get their first phone have a picture of their child, perhaps to show the child how important they are to them (husbands have no such luck…).

I would always avoid showing my children in this way.

It means everyone in every WhatsApp group you are on knows what they look like! And it may just be that our wonderful teenagers have grown up with a parent in the media, but frankly I think that’s madness.

In the media space I’m lucky enough to occupy, with the daily ramblings and socioeconomic commentary that comes across many of the groups I’m on, many people use a picture of themselves when interviewed by the broadcast media.

It’s interesting that someone would use a picture of themselves in the legacy media to create a good first impression on a social network.

I think it’s about legitimacy, trying to show that you are important to prospective clients and bosses.

I should tell you though that I must join those accused in this dock. My own WhatsApp profile pic involves a television microphone in my hand.

But in my defence, the pic was taken by DM’s Felix Dlangamandla, who just has the best eye in the business (I told him once that he’s responsible for more WhatsApp profile pics than anyone else I know).

The most bizarre thing for me is how many people involve alcohol in their image.

If this is the first impression you are going to make on someone, why on Earth would you do that?

Perhaps it’s about the aspiration to be different, to show that you are invested in having fun.

But seriously, your next boss will probably first contact you by WhatsApp. I wouldn’t do it.

I think others use an image from their last holiday, a sunset or a wild animal. At least that gets you away from the thorny problem of how to display yourself in one tiny frame.

At this point you might be wondering if I’m overthinking all of this.

I mean, I have no idea what Elon Musk has as his pic, whether it’s a picture of Mars or just his last zol, but it probably hasn’t made much difference to him.

But I do wonder.

In an era in which first impressions are becoming so much more important, how much time, care and attention have you given to your WhatsApp profile pic? DM