I’ve talked about having a personal brand in a previous post. Now I want to add something which is easy
to do and will help to get you recognised when you comment on blog sites or forums.

It called a “Gavatar”.

What is a gravatar?

A gravatar, or globally recognized avatar, is simply an image that follows you around from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things. Avatars help identify your posts on blogs and web forums.

So how do you get one?

Signing up for a gravatar.com account is FREE, and all that’s required is your email address. Once you’ve signed up you can upload your avatar image and soon after you’ll start seeing it on gravatar enabled sites!

Here’s where to sign up Gravatar

This is the picture I use in my Gravatars:

A handome bloke I know :o)

Having this on all my posts and comments in forums helps to build my personal brand. It’s not the only thing that helps… but it goes a long way.

How do you get gravatars on your site?

Setting up gravatars on your site is easy, you don’t even need an account! Plugins are available for leading blog software and content management systems, and their tutorials will have you running gravatars in no time at all.

To request a gravatar from their servers, you simply add an image to your users activity with an “src” attribute that points to their gravatar image generator and includes an MD5 hash of your email address.

Since all gravatars are rated with an MPAA style rating, you can restrict your site to show only gravatars whose content you are comfortable with. Simple.

Go out and be globally recognised… it’ll help with your branding.