You know the old saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. There’s a lot of truth in that, and in the web 2.0 world in which we live and run our eBusinesses, that takes on new meanings. One of those new meanings can be applied to avatars. How many times have you become familiar with an online persona and could immediately recognize them on any site when they used the same avatar? We all do it. The photo or graphic representation of someone online, via an avatar, is a very powerful form of personal branding.

Choose your avatar wisely, and once chosen, use it on all sites that allow avatars. This spreads your brand across the web, and enables others to get to know you. The more “familiar” you are to people, the more credibility you have down the line.

Although gravatars (Globally Recognized Avatars) have been around a long time, they are going to get a resurgence of popularity now that they’ve been acquired by Automattic (makers of Akismet for WordPress). With the newest version of WordPress being released shortly, the ability to easily embed gravatars into WordPress themes means that they will be used more and more as time goes on.

What does this mean for you?

1. If you don’t have a gravatar yet, don’t waste any more time getting one.
2. Comment on blogs as always, realizing that eventually your gravatar will start showing up next to your comments, as more and more blog themes incorporate them
3. Your face (or avatar) will become familiar to readers of those blogs, thus strengthening your brand

Creating and using avatars (or gravatars) is a simple but highly effective method of becoming a recognizable brand across the Internet. Don’t miss out on using this little personal branding technique.

(from Smash Mouth. "AllStar" Astro Lounge. Interscope Records, 1999.)

Posted on March 20th, 2008 by DazzlinDonna
Filed under: Branding