I attended a speaking event a while back. You know the kind—good energy, electric with possibilities, surrounded by people you’d love to connect with. During a break, I was maneuvering between tables when something familiar caught my eye.
Me.
There my headshot was on someone’s phone. They were scrolling through my LinkedIn profile, no idea I was right behind them. I kept going, of course. No idea how much they invested in researching me in the moment. Maybe my bio, a few posts, or a look at my credentials. Or maybe they’d end up here (if so, hi).
We did eventually meet, and they came in prepared. They already had questions, referenced things I said online, and a pre-loaded version of me set. In some ways, that’s pretty convenient—in other ways, it makes the real-life “first impression” a lot different than it used to be.
The Handshake Isn’t the Starting Point Anymore
We’ve inherited the idea that first impressions happen face-to-face. That they’re about eye contact, posture, a confident introduction, and a strong handshake. And those things do still matter, but they’re not often the true first impression.
Not when anyone can punch your name into their browser and get instant information.
Your digital presence, whether it’s LinkedIn, your published writing, or even the way your name appears in search results, is making the first impression. You’re making an impression online whether you want to or not.
What the Science Says About First Impressions
Harvard psychologist Nalini Ambady spent years studying what she called "thin slices" of behavior — brief exposures to a person, sometimes as short as five to thirty seconds, that allow observers to make surprisingly accurate judgments.
Her research found that people don't just form quick impressions. They form sticky ones, often with unsettling accuracy, from very limited information.
The mechanism behind this is well-documented: the brain is constantly pattern-matching, drawing on context, consistency, and cues it processes faster than conscious thought. Princeton researchers Alexander Todorov and Janine Willis found that trustworthiness and competence judgments form in as little as 100 milliseconds from a facial image alone.
For entrepreneurs, those judgments are being formed all the time, from every signal you put out. So we’d better focus on the signals we can control.
Likability and Credibility Must Go Together
Social psychologist Amy Cuddy identifies two dimensions of social evaluation that we assess simultaneously: warmth (do I like and trust this person?) and competence (do they actually do what they claim to do?).
The catch is that competence or warmth alone aren’t enough to win people over. If someone reads your work online and finds you technically savvy but impersonal or arrogant, you’ve lost ground before ever meeting face-to-face.
The entrepreneurs I know with the strongest reputations treat their online presence like a running conversation, not a highlight reel. Here are a few specific behaviors that make the difference:
They publish their thinking, not just their wins. Sharing what you're working through signals credibility and honesty.
They respond to comments and messages in their own voice, not with polished non-answers or copy-and-paste.
When they're wrong, they say so publicly. Nothing builds trust faster than watching someone correct themselves without being defensive about it.
They engage with people who push back rather than ignore or delete friction.
Each of those behaviors carries warmth and competence in the same gesture. They’re not toggling between "here's my expertise" and "here's my personality."
Showing both at once is exactly what the people looking you up are trying to parse out.
Stop Leaving Digital First Impressions to Chance
Before your next speaking engagement, conference, or cold outreach, run a quick gut check on what someone finds when they look you up:
Search your own name. What comes up on the first page, and does it reflect how you actually think and work?
Read your LinkedIn bio as a stranger would. Does it tell someone who you are, or just where you've been?
Scroll through your last ten posts or shares. Is there evidence of real thinking, or just a highlight reel of wins?
Look at how you've responded to comments. Does your voice come through, or does it read like damage control?
Ask yourself when you last published something you weren't completely sure about. Certainty is comfortable; honesty about uncertainty is what builds trust.
Look, we don't necessarily need a personal brand strategy. We just need to be as intentional online as we are in person — because for most people, that's where the impression starts.
What's one word you'd want someone to use to describe you after looking at your online presence? Drop it in the comments.