Gravatar – it’s a globally recognised avatar – of yourself or your business.
The most common place to see Gravatars is in the comments area of blogs – you might be wondering why some people have their faces coming up and other don’t.
Your email address = your lovely mugshot!
So a Gravatar is a profile pic that is associated with your email address. That means that if you use your email to place a comment on a page or a forum or interact with other networks, the page will automatically display your picture alongside your comment. It’s a good thing! Most especially if you are trying to put yourself and your business out there!
It’s good for business.
Some people are a little sensitive about their faces being splashed around the place. My opinion is that if you’re running a business you just have to get used it! If you’re highly sensitive you could get someone to create a cute cartoon version of yer mug but to be honest if your selling your wares it’s good to be recognised.
Multiple Identities!
The way I suggest is to have two email addresses – your personal email – usually your [email protected] and your catch-all email address – your [email protected] or [email protected]. For your personal email use a nice photo of yourself. And for your catch-all email address use the company logo. That way when you are commenting you can choose to use your face or your logo. I would though, err on the side of the personal. It’s human to relate to humans rather than a brand. Another option is a third email address – for stuff where you want to remain semi anonymous. In this case I use my gmail account and use a photo of me hiding behind a coffee cup (so mysterious!).
With Gravatar you set up an account, add your email addresses and upload different pictures that you can associate individually with each email address. But I found it a bit cumbersome the first time I did this so I thought it would be helpful for some step by step instructions.
How to set yourself up on Gravatar
Get set with sourcing 3 images:
- 1 pic of yourself – all professional, or semi or informal of how ever you want your face of your business to be.
- 1 JPG of your logo – if you a square version – this is the one you want to go for.
- 1 pic of yourself (optional) – informal or even incognito!
Go to www.gravatar.com and follow these simple instructions. This is a shortslide show so just click on the arrows to get from one step to the next:
Questions? Want to test out your new Gravatar??
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