The Importance of a Good Avatar

As I browse the vast world of Twitter, hoping to find interesting people, I’m often annoyed and impressed with people’s choice of avatar. (Your avatar is your profile photo). Some people have great photos while others haven’t even bothered to upload one and have the basic boring twitter icon. Unless you don’t want people to see your face, I don’t see the reason not to have a good avatar. Avatars are the human connection to your tweets and posts. They are the image people associate with your online personality. They allow people a glimpse of who they are talking to.

I’ve skipped over people on Twitter just because their avatar is poorly thought up or non-existent. Those people could have been an important business or social contact but they were passed because they didn’t take the time or didn’t understand the importance of an avatar.

Its important to have an avatar that shows the real life you. Not one taken from a camera phone while drunk at a bar, not one of a cartoon you like or a image you found funny.

Those people who don’t have an avatar at all, to me just say that you don’t care, so why would I care to follow you?

For those in the professional world, take time to have a really good photo done. Whether its by a professional or a friend who knows how to use proper lighting and technique, just get it done. And when you use a good avatar, upload a larger sized image because sometimes people can click on it to see your face in detail, and having a pixelated face doesn’t look good.

I’ll be posting in the future how to choose the best avatar, what colors and facial expression says about you. Until then, just get a photo up because that is what social media is for. To meet new people and contacts, so don’t let people skip over yours due to a bad choice of image.