How To Maximize the Power of Your Avatar
As a marketer I’m always thinking of ways people can enhance their image to be more impressionable and memorable. This is especially true in cyberspace where images definitely trump text. Your avatar is your face in cyberspace and a unique reflection of your online persona. It’s a way for people remember you in an infinite galaxy.
I’ve been known to express my views on avatar choices so I decided to share a few tips on how to maximize the power of your avatar:
Personality: Your avatar is your first impression to many in the online world. Add a little personality to it! If you’re fun and outgoing lets have fun looking at your avatar. If you’re athletic or active, inspire us to work out. If you’re intellectual, how about an insightful image? If you’re a hard worker and proud of your career, let us know!
Consistent: Being consistent helps people recognize you across various social networks, blogs and forums. This builds brand recognition for your online persona. Your avatar will immediately evoke an impression and provide a better understanding of your online purpose and goals. If you use a completely different avatar for every single profile then it becomes difficult for people to piece together your thoughts from different areas of the web. This makes it difficult to build a strong reputation and following.
Memorable: A memorable avatar can be created in many different ways. Use bright and bold colors, a distinct smile or even a strategically incorporated item or logo. Memorable avatars stand out. They’re usually not composed of dull colors and if they are then the image is bold. A great way people remember my avatar is the flower I wear in my avatar that shows up on many of my social networking profiles. If you have a memorable avatar people will see your image and immediately know it’s you without thinking twice.
Recognizable: My test of a recognizable avatar is meeting someone in person. If I meet you for the first time offline and I immediately feel like I already know you from our online interactions then you’ve done a great job at creating a recognizable avatar. I’ve been to many networking events where someone will come up to me and start talking to me as though they know me but I have to ask to make sure if we’re met before because I don’t recognize the person from their avatar. Of course after a few words are exchanged my memory is triggered but the initial recognition was not there. Examples of avatars that aren’t recognizable include a blurry image, a photo where something is covering your face, a photo that’s too light or too dark or even a corporate logo.
I personally always recommend avatars that are a photo of your true self. Unless I already know you, an avatar that’s a logo or image other than your face does not feel as personal. I don’t feel as connected or engaged when interacting with you.
We all remember the night before senior picture day in school. Trying on countless outfits, making sure the colors were right, making sure our outfit doesn’t clash with the background and doing our hair up to perfection. This photo goes into our senior yearbook, something our classmates will hold on to for years. This photo gets sent to our friends and family with graduations invitations. This photo is the reputation we’ve built throughout our primary years of school and this photo is a glimpse into the next chapter of our lives. If you apply these same principals of importance to your avatar choice you’ll enhance your opportunities for building a strong internet presence.
- Here are some San Diego Avatars that incorporate many elements of my recommendations. They all definitely have personality and are recognizable. I wanted to include some female avatars but for some reason only guys responded when I asked permission to use avatars!
Great blog post, I keep my avatar consistent on all the different sites (except Twitter sometimes, just to play around).
You’re touching on a small part of a very large picture; Personal Brand. I’ve been doing personal branding for over 9 years now, and it’s a pretty difficult process – especially since people change, and the brand needs to be able to evolve with those changes.
Great write up, and definitely very true regarding what should go into an Avatar, these same points should also be addressed when designing your blog, myspace profile, twitter page, and anything else that you can stamp as “yours” in the 2.0sphere.
I disagree with portions of what you have here. Mostly, I’m with ya. Memorable, yes. Personality, yes. Consistent, yes. Recognizable yes… but…. your recommendation that it be a photo of your true self… mmm.. that depends.
Now, obviously I’m biased (look at my avatar), but think about it. If I’m branding myself (which is what you’re really talking about here), there’s absolutely no reason for me to use my own photo. In fact, I would say that my personal brand, the fact that it’s not my face, stands out a bit more than everyone else’s face. My point in choosing this for my consistent brand was exactly _because_ everyone else’s avatar is of their face.
Many people feel connected to – even devoted to – Apple and other brands. They don’t use a personal face… but you’re connected to their brand. And even if you aren’t feeling like they would engage, it’s not the logo or the face that matters, it’s the actual engagement with the person behind the avatar or logo that matters. It’s not just about engaging. I could engage by being in a fight with someone. It’s about engaging in a value-centric way – delivering value (preferably lower on Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs pyramid as possible) to the person you’re engaging with.
If you can’t deliver value, your avatars mean nothing.
If you can deliver value, your brand and avatar will mean a lot, which is where the other items come into play that you mentioned… the rules about brands themselves… personality, consistency, memorability and being recognizable.
Yup, hope you expand on personal branding for your readers!
I got pretty much the same avatar or my logo. I might start taking my logo out on some sites, still debating on it.
FB and Myspace is all sorts of different defaults though. I add people I know lol.
Brands become brands by being consistent representation of value – so yes, a photo of yourself is good, but could be of a monkey head or whatever, like Nate’s ;-), but if used consistently, becomes brand recognition for your value.
I wrote something a while back that expands on the technical details of the elements you describe here. The main idea I think you should consider here is how to combine consistency and customization.
I touch on temporary modifications to avatars for holidays, (think Google’s main page), but I also think that multiple avatars can lead to different roles for different environments as long as they all evoke the same branding.
@Enrique- In regard to having an evolving brand I agree it’s a difficult process and think individuals and companies need to invest more time into researching this from the beginning. With technology changing so rapidly, brands need to be flexible and have the ability to adapt to these changes. Many companies have struggled with this and it’s evident when the attempt to re-brand themselves and get a negative reaction from consumers.
@Nate- “If you can deliver value, your brand and avatar will mean a lot” I agree with this statement. If you are a company such as apple then yes building trust around an icon through the actual engagement is what makes you memorable. I do still feel that if you are a person in the web 2.0 space, not a company it is initially more difficult to establish a personal, human connection with others if you can’t put a face to the name. For example there are people on Twitter that work for an actual company but are tweeting personal information. Instead of using their photo for the avatar, they use their company’s logo. If I have not met the person in real life and don’t know what they look like, I have a much harder time establishing a level of trust with them in the beginning.
@Richie- I change my avatar on Facebook and Myspace all the time too. Until recently these networks have been strictly used for my friends who already know me so I don’t feel the same need to ensure people recognize me by this photo. Facebook has started to become a more prevalent business tool but for the most part I only add friends.
@Rob- Your follow up comment is well put: “[avatars] if used consistently, becomes brand recognition for your value”. This is true not only for avatars but for your name. You’ve done a good job at this, when many think “Downtown” Rob your value of being outgoing, knows all the hotspots, cool happenings, Ambassador of Downtown is automatically associated with your name. At least this is what I think of when I hear your name
@Steve- Read your blog post on personal branding. It will be difficult to monitor and prevent personal brand hijacking but I like the idea of having convenient tools for small changes to the avatars. This goes along with my response to Enrique about brands being flexible and being able to adapt to changing technology and environments.
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