Get a Gravatar

Seriously.. I don’t know how many times I have brought up the importance of creating your identity and improving your network, people can’t possibly take a blue default Gravatar image or that silly looking shadow of an icon serious. If your not willing to give yourself a complete online identity (to some degree… figure that out) your not going to get the most out of your networking attempts.

Those of you that aren’t sure what a Gravtar is you can check out Gravatar.com, this post isn’t as much about how to get a Gravatar as it is about the importance of getting one and choosing it wisely. Those of you that really have no idea what a Gravatar is, in short it’s a picture of you that connects your commenting name with a face. Every time you choose to leave a comment on my blog or just about any blog for that matter, an image will be displayed along with the comment you left.

Why You Should Have a Gravatar

• It gives you an identity.
• It helps you brand you.
• It creates trust within the community.

Good Gravatar Example

As you can see in the example above Ileane has a personal photo to represent her identity online or at least in the blogging community, Ileane from Becoming an Entrepreneur makes it easy for others to recognize her on different blogs and social networking communities. Also take note to how Ileane properly takes advantage of the Keyword Luv WordPress Plugin that I have here, you can see her name displayed as “Ileane (not linked) from Blogging (linked)”. Based on Ileane using “Blogging” as her keyword it links the keyword that Ileane is targeting to the domain she is targeting with that Keyword, it can also be a phrase (2 words max).

Bad Gravatar Example

I blocked out the comment author of the above comment because this post isn’t meant to offend anyone or make anyone feel like I’m ripping them, it’s meant to help serious bloggers or newbie bloggers that want to be serious, get serious. That goes for you business bloggers and micro-niche bloggers too.

In the example above you can see that this individuals Gravatar is of a white object, some might disagree and that’s fine but I don’t feel that this image effectively connects the comment author to their identity. I can’t see it help in any branding aspect either, again that’s just me.

Tips to a Good Avatar

• Use the same picture on all of your online profiles, Gravatar makes it easy as many online sites will pull your Gravatar as your default image.
• Use a real picture or cartoon caricature of yourself, using logos and other random items isn’t personal.
• Don’t be shy, if you already have an online identity you might as well let people know who you really are.

If your doing this (blogging) and your playing for keeps I would suggest that you stop reading this post and get a Gravatar. It’s important to point out that even if you don’t have a blog and your not ever planning to become a blogger of any type you can still create a Gravatar account, as I mentioned above many online services will pull your Gravatar so you don’t have to upload a picture for every online profile that you have.

O.k, I’m done. Now it’s time for you to retweet this on Twitter or at least follow me on twitter @extremejohn, if your not in to the Twitter thing take a few seconds to subscribe to my rss feed or connect with me via my Facebook Fan Page.

Tagged as: avatar, blog commenting, blog commenting tips, comment author, commenting tips, gravatar