Writers and Avatars on Facebook

As a writer I decided to have some fun and use a cartoon Avatar on my Facebook page for now.  I like changing occasionally.

I’ve always had some picture or another of myself on my twitter and Facebook pages associated with my writer self, and just in case you’re one of the people who don’t,  let me say it kinda makes you less human, more of a non-entity if you don’t have a picture up there to represent yourself. If you’re just you, it’s not very personal. And, if you’re a business or the site is the representative of your business (like being a writer) then not having a photo can really kill your business (as in not having people move to your writer's info). 

It may seem silly, but that blank image is what your customers would be associating with you. So if writer equals blank space what does that convey to the readers who stop by? It also makes it look like you’ve something to hide and that makes people think you may be a spammer.  So it’s best to put SOMETHING up there.

For me, it was fun using Cartoonize http://www.cartoonize.net/ to create the picture and easy as well. Just upload a picture to the site and a couple of clicks later you have it – there’s even a choice of styles. See what you can do with it. Use a picture you like and see the results in moments.

But there are lots of other alternatives.

If you don’t want to be a cartoon there are a number of free resources on the web where you can create an Avatar of yourself  from scratch using bits and pieces they provide.  

Here are a few I’ve run into and explored just a bit. Create a new you and have fun doing it.

Build Your Wild Self is one of my Favorites, but that’s me, others may suite you better. http://www.buildyourwildself.com/

Here are some others:

Avachara

http://avachara.com/avatar/

Face Your Manga

http://www.faceyourmanga.it/

DoppelMe

http://www.doppelme.com/

Montagraph

http://www.montagraph.com/

Visit and see what might work for you – or go ‘googling’ for Avatar creators or another creative keyword and if you find something unusually great go ahead and share the link here.  It would be greatly appreciated.

It’s time to stop being a mystery person and face the crowd – or at least let your Avatar do it for you.