Your Twitter profile picture should make you human, present you as someone I want to know and make you interesting.

Most people have a photograph for their Twitter profile picture. As a close second, companies post their logos. Then there are people who have a picture that isn’t them but is something close to a portrait- a painting, a face, a photo of something.

And then there is the advertising power-play: sex and money. How many more profiles will show fanned out $100 bills? Or women making out for shock value? Twitter isn’t an advertising platform, it’s a relationship-based social network.

Of course, you can use Twitter any way you want to- I’m not saying anything is “wrong.” But I believe your profile picture for an individual account, whether on Twitter or any network, should do three things:

1.    Make you human. Twitter is a social application made for social interaction—I want to interact with people, not services.

2.    Present you well. By well, I mean that you should be someone I’m proud to have on my profile Follower list, or that

3.    Make you interesting. I.e. Who is that? I want to find out more about that person.

My profile picture is pretty simple- it’s me in a suit with my signature spike of white hair. But I think it does all of those things. Most importantly, it keeps me social on a social media platform—not an advertisement and not a service.

Let me know what you think: @murraynewlands.