A little flavour of what's in store...

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Thinking of changing your avatar?



I sometimes think I'd like to change my avatar (the little picture that accompanies your blog and twitter posts). Something that says a bit more about who I am, what I like or is more indicative of our business of personalised photo gifts. Now there's a radical thought.

Here are just a few of the ideas I've had:

Fozzie Bear (from the Muppets) - he's always happy, nothing gets him down, a real friend who'd do anything for his friends, sometimes shy and a little timid.

A banana - I like bananas, I like the colour yellow, they suggest tropical sun drenched paradise.

A jigsaw piece - Our company started out just personalising jigsaw puzzles with your own photographs. That was three years ago. Today, we still have the largest selection of jigsaw puzzles you can personalise - we've just added more gift ideas as we've gone along.

Mandy's picture - It's Mandy's business really - I just do all the online stuff and upkeep for her website. Problem is, she's a little camera shy - can you believe it?

Keeping the same image - a mug shot of me on a childrens rollercoaster ride (click here to read the full story of that one), suffice to say the smile (i'm always smiling) is more a hanging on for dear life grimace on this occasion.

You see I had a bit of a dissagreement with a friend the other day on the subject of avatar changes. My view is that once you start using one avatar, it's 'suicide' to change it. My feelings are that your avatar becomes your quick reference for regular followers amongst a fast changing sea of faces and icons.

It's something instantly recognisable that a follower can spot - a bit like tying a j-cloth around the handle of your suitcase when you travel abroad so you can spot it easily on the luggage carousel.

I wouldn't go so far as to suggest that by changing your avatar you're not bothered about your followers being able to continue following you - there is RSS etc to keep them informed, but anything that you change that will make it harder for and possible cost you followers / customers cannot be a good thing.

If you do feel compelled to change your avatar, be prepared to work really hard to ensure that everyone knows what you used to look like.

P.S This is our 401st Blog post - you have been reading....

2 comments:

RCG said...

Hi Jonathan

How do you create an Avatar in the first place. Wouldn't mind having one when I comment on stuff.

Like your blog by the way. I've stuck you on my iGoogle page :-)

RCG

Fabulous Photo Gifts said...

Hi RCG

Thanks for stopping by.

The easiest way to create a 'global' avatar (the little picture or icon that accompanies all your posts on blogs) is to visit gravatar.com, create an account (it's really easy and FREE) and follow their instructions.

It's what I've done.

I've also got my avatar set as the same picture on my Blogger account so when I leave a comment on a Blogger blog, it uses that.

If you're on Twitter, then you can set an avatar / profile picture there too - I kept mine the same for continuity across all platforms.

Hope that helps.

Jonathan.

p.s thanks for sticking us on your iGoogle page. So much to do - so little time....