Identify Yourself
The primary goal of a blog is building community. Writing excellent posts is part of the task. Making comments at other blogs, responding to those comments and commenting on the response of your own blog are the ways to build community.
If your comments and responses are consistently helpful, informative, interesting and well written, you will become recognizedand you’ll be creating relationships with ongoing value. As Darren Rouse comments in his 31 Days to a Build a Better Blog, the word spreads and in doing so, your page views will increase. By promoting other bloggers, they in turn ought to be promoting you and your blog as well. Hopefully art sales will follow.
Just about as important to being a respected commenter is having a gravatar that is instantly recognizable. A globally recognized avatar is that small square picture that pops up every time someone comments.
generic
It’s easy to get a gravatar . Be sure to upload a file that is distinctive and that makes a suggestion of what kind of person you are. By not having a gravatar, a generic picture will be inserted by the blogpost software. No one remembers generic.
Fiber Focus
These two gravatars are used by Rayela who owns an active international forum at Fiber Focus.
Rostichery
Surfing the blogs related to sewing I recently came across Rostichery. I really liked what the owner, Rowena was saying and so bookmarked her blog under quiltbloggers. Rowena’s gravatar is a photo of two feet and two child’s feet. Not long afterwards, I noticed her gravatar in two different blogs. Remembering those feetlead me to click on her comments and make a comment of my own. I read quite a few of her blog posts and noticed that her friends were commenting regularly. Rowena is building a profile, providing value and growing a following of loyal readers.
my Art of Quilting Forum gravatar
It takes only a couple of minutes to get a gravatar. A gravatar is your signature. Make it compelling. Be different. Be bold.
If you have a question about how to get a gravatar, please post a comment, and I will reply.
Other comments are welcome.
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Thank you for that–i “remember” pics more than names—that old
“face and name” thing and am more likely to click on that, unless it’s a *really* interesting comment :}
another way we can assist other bloggers is leaving a comment with good content whenever we read a good post that has zero comments. I think we all love getting effective comments and hope that some good threads will get growing. In this way we can grow a reputation or personality on the blogs we read regularly, and others get to know us better by both a memorable gravatar and our helpful insights.