If you are serious about social networking (and not just studying it like me!) Then you need friends and do you know what all 100 Top Stumblers and 98/100 Top Diggers have in common?
That’s right they all use an avatar picture…
An avatar image is a strong visual brand and identity that people quickly associate with a person many bloggers know who Darren Rowse is, simply by the picture he uses as his avatar, Lyndon from SEO Cornwall is another good example with his distinctive red background. The power of brand and visual identities is simple people notice you. Recently I had a conversation with MegT an Australian Blogger (its her avatar shown) We had both started to notice that every where we went we bumped into each other, now we have interests in similar niches but the reason we noticed each other was down to the fact we both use the same avatar in every location and by doing so we both have recognisable profiles and a sphere of trust.
When brands go wrong…
Trust is a strange thing, to take the example of Meg when I’m stumbling and come across something she recommended I nearly always stop to read, I trust her opinion and therefore think that if she believed it worth stumbling then I should at least take a look. Now you could argue that is how Stumbleupon is meant to work and yes, but I don’t know most of the people who recommend sites on stumble and I haven’t built up a respect for them as a brand.
What if Meg started to send me porn sites? then her brand changes it looses that trust relationship and I start to ignore her. The slope for a known brand is far steeper then some one who I can’t remember, when we gain a visual link and trust and that is then abused we are likely to have greater associated feelings, betrayal guilt etc then if it was a imageless persona.
The second issue with visual identity is when it is stolen or borrowed, if I associate Meg avatar as a trustworthy brand then when I am out in the big Social media world I am likely to either seek her account or add to my “friends” list at various sites based solely on that image, but how do I know its MegT?
Image is a powerful thing, by creating a brand you are pushing yourself to the front but with that comes a few small problems and every so often its worth looking to make sure no one else is using your brand to build their own on..
Subscribe to The Venture Skills Blog by Email
All our Posts are audio subscribed for more information see here, and to access the podcast feed here
This blog is moving soon, make sure you move with us by using our Feedburner RSS feed, if you have used the autodiscovery button in your browser you may need to swap feeds, simply delete the old feed and add, http://feeds.feedburner.com/VentureSkills For a more detailed explanation on feeds and recieving our content in various formats click here
Subscribe to our Feedburner RSS Today!
Subscribe to our Odiogo Audio Feed
May 25, 2007 at 6:19 pm
Totally agree there. I’m pretty new to the world of blogs and social media but I am already aware of certain brands/people out there. When you see them as a member or visitor to a site, or leaving comments it immediately gives a higher authority to a site or post you may have simply passed by.
May 27, 2007 at 5:21 pm
Well, with Stumbleupon there is the issue that in order to significantly participate you MUST have an avatar, so the fact the top 100 have them is no surprise even if the recognition factor were not involved.
Also, I feel that a distinctive name is more universally recognisable than a distinctive avatar, because avatar’s are useless in many places, for example I cannot use my personal avatar (nor any random avatar I might choose) here, because there is no spot for displaying it. Of course, a distinctive avatar is more instantly recognisable, so it is probably best to try and maintain both.
Hmm, maybe I should change a few of my forum avatars back to my personal one. And I might as well post it here too: There, recognise my brand people :-p
May 27, 2007 at 7:05 pm
I don’t think their is any part of stumbleupon which requires you to have an avatar (certainly not in the new interface which shows a blue background silhouette) nor do I think that a name is as identifiable as an avatar though they all add to the overall brand and so obviously the best idea is to have consistent username and brand. You might be interested in http://internetducttape.com/2007/04/10/an-introduction-to-reputation-management/
Which covers text based usernames in detail
May 30, 2007 at 3:30 am
http://pressposts.com/Technology/What-do-I–Top-Diggers-Stumblers-have-in-common/
Submited post on PressPosts.com - “What do I and the Top Diggers and Stumblers have in common?”
June 2, 2007 at 6:11 pm
In fact, now I check, currently the photo is only required in order to use the search function. I think it was required for more functions in the past, but I may be misremembering, I have only recently started using stumbleupon again after an extended absence.Still, almost every active StumbleUpon member (with the exception of a few very new ones) has a picture, so I don’t see it as significant that the top 100 do too (in fact, out of 400 visitors to my stumbleupon blog, only 2 of them have not had pictures, both of whom were extremely minor stumbleupon users, with only about 100 t-ups between them.)
I acknowledge that the picture is a very important tool, but I don’t feel StumbleUpon is the place to be proving that. What you need if you want empirical evidence for your conjecture is a site where a significant proportion of the active users don’t have pictures, and then you can compare how popular those with pictures are to those without pictures at the same activity level. StumbleUpon is not such a site. Digg may be, I’ve never been much of a one for Digg, but I suspect that pictures are relatively uncommon on it.
June 19, 2007 at 4:48 am
should seriously think of adding one to my profiles in all sites.
September 21, 2007 at 9:06 am
[...] What do I & top stumblers have in common [...]
September 22, 2007 at 4:46 pm
IMHO, being on the Top Stumblers page and driving traffic from SU have little to do with each other. With the exception of Majakka, I never see any of the most powerful traffic-driving stumblers on that page.