Tag Archives: Avatar

Blogging

Make Your Best First Impression

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What is your first impression of BenSpark.com

I just attended a couple of blog conferences. While I was there I learned a great deal about personal branding and getting your message out there for people to hear. But what about the message that they see? This blog was completely redesigned to have a much better, cleaner and more professional look. I believe that when new people visit this blog that their first impression of me as a blogger has been greatly improved because of this change.

What about the face to face impression?

Unless you go to conferences all the time you won’t get that face to face time with your readers but you can put your best face forward on your blog. Ted Murphy advocated that bloggers get some professional photos done of themselves. Photographs are encouraged to be your avatars and also on your about pages. The problem is that people pick the crappiest photos for these things. For instance, they use a shot of themselves doing something funny and expect to be taken seriously. Conversely, if they have a funny blog why would they be wearing a suit and tie? We aren’t always the best judge of what a picture conveys to an audience. And we certainly are not objective about something so personal as a photo of ourselves.

Want feedback on your Facebook/Twitter Photo…. BEFORE you post it for the world to see?

This is where a new simple service called SpeakingFaces come in to help. You can upload a photo of yourself an people can anonymously give you their first impression. I posted one of the photos that my friend Lenny took of me for the blog redesign. I then put a shout out on Twitter to see what people thought of the photo. The response so far is what appears above.

The problem with the way I did it was that I sent the link directly to my picture out on Twitter and on Twitter many people are my friends and have met me so they may or may not have been going with the overall impression of the photo but rather their experience with me. I will try this experiment again with another photo and see what people using the site have to say. The great thing is that as a user you can upload and change the picture and get feedback on each until you find that one photo that best conveys the impression that you are trying to make. With each new photo your votes get reset so you can easily see what people think of the photo at a glance. This makes making that first impression even better and more informed before you post a new avatar to Twitter or profile photo on Facebook or even the new photo on your about page.

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Blogging

Your Best Face Forward

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SocialSpark Avatar

For this installment of SocialSpark Saturdays I ‘m talking about your avatar. I’ve now looked at over 19,000 SocialSpark profiles and do you know what is a common denominator for all of the Premium Bloggers and more successful bloggers? Their avatars. Successful bloggers know that blogging is a personal endeavor and putting their own face up front is important.

I’m talking about a full on image of their face not just an eye, chin or some obscure part of the face. Blogging is a very visual medium where advertisers and other bloggers are drawn to your images immediately. Do you really want to represent yourself as a Simpsons or Southpark character? To me that shows a blogger who is not serious about their craft. It is sloppy so don’t do it.

When thinking about your avatar take a look at the premium bloggers, the izea insiders and then go to the networks area and take a look at bloggers in each network. You are going to see bloggers projecting strong confident images of themselves. They are also going to have well cropped images.

When you upload an image to SocialSpark you will have the option of cropping a large image and a small image. Take the time to do this properly so that your image appears the way that you want it to appear.

What not to use for an avatar:

  • Default images that come with Windows.
  • Cartoon Characters*
  • Sparky or Leaving avatar blank
  • Your 1985 prom picture
  • Your kids*
  • Your Dog*
  • Your Cat*
  • Any photo taken more than 2 years ago
  • A cameraphone photo

    A blurry, dark or small photo blown up

  • A Photo of you at the Grand Canyon… to scale

I put a few (*) up there because some people blog about their family so photos of their kids are fine, as long as the blogger is in the photo with their kids, dogs, and cats (unless the blogger is a cat, dog or kid). Cartoon characters are fine if they are custom characters of the blogger, not licensed characters. Your avatar represents who you are and they present you in the best possible light.

What you should use for your avatar.

  • Have a friend help you or set up a tripod or use an Xshot to take a picture of yourself
  • Dress for success
  • Smile
  • Get up close and personal
  • A plain non distracting background

You want to make sure that the image you put out there for other bloggers and advertisers to see is an image that people want to see. Present an open friendly image and just see how many more people want to interact with you.

I am an IZEA Insider and my crew is called the “I’m Not A Famous Blogger” Crew and I want YOU to join me. Here are simple instructions on how exactly you can join my IZEA Insider Crew on SocialSpark.