Traffic Is King

I was inspired to create this tutorial after looking through my blog comments and noticing how many people didn’t have Gravatars. Not having a Gravatar attached to your comments is like having a drivers license with no picture.  Everyone should have a Gravatar to create their brand identity online.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So Then What Is A Gravatar ?

A Gravatar is basically a short abbreviation which means “ globally recognized avatar”.  An avatar can be a picture of yourself (preferred) or a logo that represents you or your business brand. If you don’t have neither you can always do a Google image search to find something appropriate that you feel represents you.

The Gravatar will appear right along side your name with every comment you leave behind on all Gravatar enabled websites. Leaving behind an avatar image on every blog comment  will create brand awareness with the blog owner and other readers that come to that blog post.  This is a powerful way to create your brand Identity online with people in your niche industry. It is also a relationship builder.  Most people can connect more with an image of a face or a logo than the default image place holder.  It is much harder for people to connect with a default image because it lacks personalization.

If you are really active in leaving blog comments in some niche communities you will get notice a lot by others in that community.  It can give you in some instance a celebrity like status. If people see your comments  everywhere it is like “ Wow this dude or dudette is everywhere!”

It becomes real powerful when people recognize you offline at an event, conference or meetup and connect the Gravatar to the real human being. People feel even more connected to you now that they see you live in person. This could be very beneficial to your brand and your business in general.

 

So How Does This Gravatar Thingy Work Dude?

You upload your image to the Gravatar website where it is stored on their computers. The Gravatar is attached to an email address that you specify during setup. Anytime you leave a comment on a blog and enter your email address you specified during the setup process, your Gravatar image appears next to your blog comment.

 

How do I Setup My Own Gravatar?

I have created some screenshots below which will take you step by step on creating your own Gravatar.  Just follow the steps below and you will be on your way to building your own brand image online.

 

1. Visit the Gravatar website and sign up at the top left-hand corner.

 

 

2. Signup to create your own Gravatar.

 

 

3. Select “add an email” in the my account menu. This email address will be connected to the image you select later on.

 

 

4. After you confirm your email account you want to select your Gravatar image. Go to my account menu and select add image. Choose where you’d like to get the image from.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Most of your images will already be on your computer. So select a file from your computer to get your image.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. Crop your image and select finish.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7. Choose a rating for your Gravatar image.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8. Confirm your image.

9. Select an email address to connect with your Gravatar image you just uploaded.

10. Congratulations! Your email address is now married to your Gravatar image.

 

 

 

 

 

That’s pretty much it. You can now go out into your blog communities and start branding your new Gravatar image. Show off your Gravatar image to me by leaving your comment below. Also if you don’t mind spreading this post around so that others can learn how to create Gravatars of their own. That would be really cool!  Re-tweets, Facebook , and social bookmarks are always appreciated.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 15th, 2010 at 1:11 am and is filed under Branding, Read Some Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.