What? Yes, I know. I get it all the time. What’s a Gravatar? An avatar is used in social media to place a face with a name, but it is really just a representation of you. Some people take this to extremes by using photos of celebrities or things that they like. Avatars are small images that add personalization to a media post.
Smart social media users will use avatars that are interesting. Interesting enough to click on. It could be art or something sexy. Don’t be surprised if the sexy female avatar is really a dude trying to get traffic to his web site.
Many of you are used to using avatars on Facebook or Twitter and you probably uploaded an image in your profile which in turn was used as your avatar. If you haven’t yet, shame on you. These are closed proprietary systems that use your profile image as an avatar, but what about the open web?
Introducing Gravatar.com! Now you can manage an avatar that can be associated with an email address. You can change the image anytime you want. Any where you make a comment, forum post or blog entry your avatar shows up along with it. This is a free service and may be a great addition to your online branding.
Signing up is easy and painless. Simple put in an email and verify it. Then upload an image. They even have online cropping tools so that you can make fine adjustments.
Many blogs and forums are Gravatar enabled and if they are not you can subscribe to a similar service. Gravatar is probably the most recognized global avatar system.
To see it in action go take a look at this post, scoll to the bottom and look at the comments section:
Many Webs Make Up Your Web Presence
Do you see who is using Gravatar and who isn’t?
Let me know if this was helpful to you.
