I have enjoyed reading the discussions being held on the impact posting a photo of oneself has on a social networking.  I like to see that the trend is moving in the most logical direction..posting a photo instead of a logo.  In this consumer driven economy trusting the person who is behind the logo/brand is very important.

I’ll go with what Jason at Social Media Examiner has to say about “Grabbing attention vs. being authentic in social media”.  Like it not, things really have changed in social networking.  Posting Things instead of a photo just are not going to cut.

One point I will have to differ with Jason is on…

“And, to be honest, in a virtual world, your name is more important than your face, isn’t it? After all, which one are you going to Google? A face or a name?”

More Visual Consumer

As it is true you can not Google an image, or a face, I do find most people scan their LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook Feeds for familiar faces before they look to see the name.  They skip over the Logo or cartoon characters to find the photo of the person of interest.

That value has to be considered when thinking out what photo to post.  A quick glance of all the social networks and it is easy to see the Grab Attention photo has now changed to the Clever Quality Headshot.

Change to Frequently

The frequent changing of photos can get be counter productive since when someone quickly scans their avatar list of friends they are looking for the familiar photo.  Changing every day or so will tend create confusion.  In this age of Mobile Phones and their posting of very small photos makes for dealing with someone changing their photo a major issue.

It is easy to lose contact with someone in a busy social network when they keep changing their photo.

Logo ≠ Social

As social media gets more social the requirements of how business is done in a social environment will evolve to the basics.  Posting a Logo does not represent a person or give off there being any social caring involved.  In the near future a photo of who is representing the Brand, or Logo, will be required in order to attract the true consumers.  This will be a major change for many PR and Marketing firms to recommend to their major clients since it will require the social media for their brand to boil down to being done by a person, or team of people, who will become the mouth piece for the brand.  Fortunately, consumer interest is already moving towards demanding to know who the person is behind the brand taking up space in their social real estate.  Big box businesses will soon need to start the planning of putting more social into their social media.

Let me know how I can help.

• Branding Your Business or Blog with an Avatar (performancing.com)
• Your Avatar on the Web (chrisbrogan.com)
• Rhodri Marsden: Avatars are an intrinsic part of our online life (independent.co.uk)
• 9 things I really don’t like about your avatar (sciencetext.com)