LinkedIn is one of the most popular professional social networking platforms used by over 722 million users worldwide. Your LinkedIn profile serves as your professional online presence and changing your profile picture is one way to update your profile. However, when you change your profile photo on LinkedIn, it automatically notifies your connections by default which can be annoying at times.
In this article, we will walk you through the step-by-step process to change your LinkedIn profile picture without pinging your entire network.
Why Would You Want to Change LinkedIn Profile Photo Without Notifying Connections?
Here are some common reasons why you may want to change your LinkedIn profile photo without blasting it out to your connections:
- You want to update your photo but don’t want to flood your connections’ notifications and clutter their feed.
- You want to test out different profile photos and get feedback from close connections first before updating it for everyone.
- You want to make minor edits like cropping to your existing photo without notifying your whole network.
- You want to avoid drawing too much attention to your profile while making backend updates.
Updating your profile picture lets you put your best foot forward but doing it quietly allows you to make changes seamlessly without bombarding your connections.
Step 1: Upload New Profile Photo
Here are the steps to upload a new photo for your LinkedIn profile:
- Access your LinkedIn account and go to your profile page.
- Click on the current profile picture and select ‘Change photo’.
- Choose your new profile photo from your computer or mobile device.
- Crop or edit the photo as needed.
- Click Save once you are satisfied with the new photo.
This will upload your new profile picture but will not yet change it or notify your connections.
Step 2: Turn Off Profile Photo Change Notifications
To stop LinkedIn from alerting your connections about your new profile photo, you need to turn off the notifications feature first. Here is how to do it:
- Go to your LinkedIn Settings and open the Preferences tab.
- Under Communications, click on Profile.
- Uncheck the box next to “Notify your network when you change your profile photo.”
- Scroll down and click Save to apply the new setting.
This will ensure your connections do not get notified when you change your profile picture.
Step 3: Change Profile Picture
Now you can finally change your profile picture without notifying your entire network:
- Go back to your LinkedIn profile page.
- Click on your current profile picture and select ‘Change photo’.
- Choose the new photo you uploaded earlier from the options.
- Crop the photo if needed and click Save.
That’s it! Your profile picture is now changed and since you disabled notifications, none of your connections will be notified about this change.
Step 4: Review New Profile Photo
It’s a good idea to review how your new profile photo looks once the change is completed:
- Check how your new photo looks on your profile page – make sure it’s aligned, sized, and cropped properly.
- Review how your new picture looks in search results and on your network’s feed.
- Ask trusted connections for feedback on the new photo if needed.
- Switch back to your old photo if you are not satisfied with how the new one represents you.
Taking these steps allows you to preview your profile changes before they are visible to your wider network.
Step 5: Turn Back On Notifications (Optional)
If you want your connections to be notified about future profile photo changes, you can re-enable notifications:
- Go back to LinkedIn Settings > Preferences > Communications > Profile.
- Check the box next to “Notify your network when you change your profile photo.”
- Click Save to turn notifications back on.
With this setting turned on, LinkedIn will notify your connections about any subsequent profile photo changes you make.
Pro Tip: Update Photo Selectively
You can also notify selected connections about your new profile photo rather than blasting it out to everyone or keeping it completely hidden:
- Change your photo as outlined above with notifications turned off.
- Manually share the updated profile with selected connections by sending them a message or posting about it.
- This allows you to selectively showcase your new photo to the most important people in your network.
Conclusion
Updating your LinkedIn profile photo can refresh your professional presence but constant notifications can overwhelm your network. By following the steps above, you can seamlessly change your LinkedIn profile picture without notifying all of your connections.
The key steps are:
- Upload new photo but don’t change it yet.
- Turn off profile photo change notifications in Settings.
- Change profile picture to new photo.
- Review how the new photo looks.
- Turn notifications back on if desired.
Using this approach allows you to update your profile and put your best foot forward without annoying your entire network with constant alerts. A professional profile photo that represents your brand goes a long way on LinkedIn, so feel free to change it as often as you want while managing notifications.