Ever wonder how people who leave posts and comments on blogs and Social Media sites like Facebook get those cute photos to go with them? These are called avatars or more specifically ‘gravatars’.
An avatar is a representation of a person in the form of an icon. ‘gravatar’ is the more commonly used term now and it means a ‘globally recognized avatar’.
When you create an avatar, you can use a real photo of yourself for instance, or you may want to use a graphic or caricature instead.
You can use these icons to represent you as you visit websites, blogs, and social media sites when leaving comments or when creating your personal profile. As you leave comments and make posts more often, your gravatar will become recognized. Others may soon begin to recognize your icon and may even follow your posts.
A gravatar may very likely become part of your personal branding, so if you plan on having an online business, it’s best to consider what to use at some length before creating your own avatar.
In visiting websites and blogs, you may find some representations which are less attractive or appropriate than others. Creating a silly or inappropriate gravatar might seem like great fun when just socializing, but this could be a big problem if you are in the process of building a successful online business as part of your personal plan.
A business logo might be used as a gravatar. Be sure to check the sites you visit for their rules regarding the use of logos, but it’s a great way to get known around the web by getting your logo as your icon.
Creating your own avatar is simple and can be done for free. It’s best if you already have a photo, logo, or design ready to use. All you have to do is then upload them to the site where they are resized automatically to the average gravatar image. The average size is 80×80 pixels. These are then attached or linked to an email address you provide. There might be the need to have a couple of different ones if appropriate.
Once you have created your own gravatar it is then associated with your email address. Now when you post a comment to a blog and use this particular email address in your signature, your gravatar will now appear with your post.
If you have multiple email addresses in use, you can assign the same gravatar to each one or create a different icon for each address you use on the web.
The steps necessary to create your own gravatar are:
- Select the image you want to use and note where this file is located
- Decide what email address you want this image associated with
- Set up a free account at a gravatar creating website of your choice
- Login
- Add email address you want to use
- Upload image
- Select image for email
- Start posting comments in forums, Facebook, other social media sites and blogs and use the email you just set up with your new gravatar
Have fun but again, remember that whatever image you use, will become part of your personal branding so choose carefully.
