How Your Social Network Avatar Can Make Or Break Your Internet Marketing Efforts March 30, 2007
Posted by Andrew Wee in : Internet Marketing Branding , trackbackLinkbaiting on social networks like MyBlogLog, MySpace and BumpZEE is common, especially when Internet Marketers use pictures of bikini-clad women as their avatar.
While there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with the practice, I feel that it sets up expectations that the blogger or website owner will have to deliver on once the visitor lands on your page.
If you can keep your readers happy, you’ve laid the foundation for a successful and low cost (possibly free) traffic generation model.
The sad reality is that more than 90% of the sites using such techniques have average (and usually sub-standard) poor content.
At best, this is gimmicky in my opinion and best used for one-off, throwaway adsense-oriented traffic.
But if you’re a serious Internet Marketer in this for the long haul, you’d do much better to build your brand, which means either using your photograph, or an image which represents your online presence.
Iconic Avatars: Michael “GrayWolf” Gray, Jim Kukral, Rasheed Ali, Robyn Tippins, Todd “StuntDubl” Malicoat, Shawn Collins, Chris “Drinkbait” Hooley, Jeremy “Shoemoney” Schoemaker.
Credibility and reputation are essential to your long term success, and being consistent in your online branding build rapport with your visitors. Consistent branding will bring you intangible returns in the way of joint ventures which will net you much more than merely driving traffic to an adsense-optimized site.
I don’t know about you, but it would be difficult to take some aspiring marketer who uses a Hooters girl as his icon, seriously, much less consider a joint venture.
Popularity: 33%
Text Blog feed
shit, I’ve a piece of tight ass as my avatar!
I don’t want to be your 10%.
If you’re targeting women, you might like to choose something more appropriate.
Else I think the use of “Bitch Slap Your Fat” on your blog seems fairly male-oriented.
I have avoided a few sites because of avatars, eventually finding that the blog itself was very good.
I do not think it helps the site. Unless you are looking for a site with pictures of sexy women you are not really going to go there.
Or are you.
I’ll drink to that!
Aloha!
I totally agree.
Laura
Hi Laura,
I agree with you too.
Your first comment on my blog.
Yay!
[...] Your Your Social Network Avatar Can Make Or Break Your Internet Marketing Efforts Credibility and reputation are essential to your long term success, and being consistent in your online branding build rapport with your visitors. Consistent branding will bring you intangible returns in the way of joint ventures which will net you much more than merely driving traffic to an adsense-optimized site. Internet Strategy, Making Money Online var bz_url=’http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jimkukral.com%2F%3Fp%3D318′; var bz_num_comments=0; var bz_comment_date=”; Make money with Jim!: Earn 10% with Chitika’s Referral Program. Jim Recommends: Affiliate marketing resource: A Practical Guide To Affiliate Marketing. The current Top Banana is: http://www.best-earning-strategies.com/ Date: Apr 2nd, 2007 · Comments RSS [...]
[...] Posting irrelevant images (usually a scantily-clad female) in their avatars [see: How Your Social Network Avatar Can Make Or Break Your Internet Marketing Efforts] [...]
[...] find a Andrew Wee’s thoughts on this matter very [...]
[...] There’s an issues out there called link baiting. Apparently, it’s not too uncommon for people to go on sites like Flickr, find an attractive photo of a stranger, and claim it for the fake identity they’ve created. This strategy is used to gain more traffic, because it’s thought that humans are more inclined to interact with pretty people. Disturbing, right? Sometimes, it’s previous obvious when an icon is a fake. For example, if you’re a bikini-clad girl or a topless guy in your blog icon, I’m not going to take you very seriously. And if your blog gets big, and you use a picture of a stranger that looks legit, someone is bound to find a real picture of you or recognize the person in the image as being someone they know. And it will get out. [...]