What’s in an avatar?

Since we began to delve into the world of the world wide web I am sure that like myself, many of you will have learnt all manner of things that would have seemed to be alien from anything we grew up with. 

We communicate in so many different ways via our computers.  An avatar is an important part of your online representation of yourself, usually a picture of you that shows up in places where you leave comments or forum posts.  Using social sites like Facebook, My Space etc we can reach others when no other form of communication could have done in the past.  Also, blogs or forum groups where we can exchange ideas with like minded people whether it is a group of friends like Boomers and Beyond or groups who follow similar thought processes.  An instant way of being recognised is to have what is commonly called an avatar.  No, not a copy of the recent film!  This would be in the form of a small square picture that has been created from a personal photo of oneself or a photograph of something we have made.  This is especially helpful when running online shops since your customers can instantly see what you are about.  Otherwise, your customers might like to see what the artist behind the work actually looks like since the personal touch is always more favourable.

When using your avatar for selling purposes it is useful to remain constant.  For instance, the avatar can be a part of small version of your shop banner.  I have often used a picture of one of my pieces of encaustics for my artist’s shop.   It can be good for marketing purposes for the potential customer to be able to recognise you from your avatar.

Likewise, when I chat with friends I prefer to have a personal picture.  This is easier to change as often as I wish since it is not used as a marketing tool.

Looking through the BBEST team try and guess, without cheating, to whom the following avatars belong!  No prizes but just a bit of fun!

Here we have avatars that suggest what the author is about.

  An example of how the avatar has been matched to the banner belonging to this shop! The more personal touch – how old?

Well, I guess because I was looking at the BBEST shops I found very few personal photos!  Now did you guess which avatar belonged to which seller?  Answers on a postcard etc!!!!