June 04, 2011

Does Your Avatar Have Personality?

Once again while reading the Etsy forums in search of information treasure I came across this post  about if you should use a photo of yourself or one of your product as your avatar. Half of the responses were in favor of a photo of yourself the reason being Etsy is about people. The other half of the responses were in favor of a product photo to represent the shop. It really stood out, that many had said, they only clicked on product avatars. One person said it didn’t matter as long as the avatar was interesting. Yet another brought up that the Etsy admin have avatar’s with photo’s of themselves.

Having been ready for an avatar change, I was considering changing to a photo of myself. Especially since many of my Etsy teammates have such lovely photo’s of themselves and I noticed it is becoming a trend.

A big concern for me is the name of my Etsy Shop, VintagePrecious. If I changed to a photo of myself would many assume I sold vintage?  I named my shop VintagePrecious because my designs are inspired by vintage for precious little girls. I think it makes sense for Etsy admin to have photo's of themeselves because even though they have Etsy shops they represent Etsy. It would make sense, that if you are asking for help or advice in the forums from Etsy admin you are not talking to a shoe. One thing I’ve noticed about the Etsy admin photo's, is it gives Etsy even more personality.

Etsy must know this, I’m sure they did their research. So how do we give our shops personality & representation with our avatars? TAGSMITH on Etsy has had more success with his avatar now than when it was a photo of himself as you can see here in his avatar .  I think TAGSMITH nailed it! ;)  You don't see his face, but you do see his hands at work making his craft.

I want Lloyd Price to sing to my avatar, “Oh-oh-over and over I'll prove my love to you... 'Cause you've got personality.”  I’m off to brainstorm for a creative way to merge both personality and shop representation into my 75 x 75 pixels avatar!

5 comments:

Michaela! said...

What a great post! I've always thought about my Avatar and have changed it frequently in the past never knowing if I should have a picture of myself or an item and love what I have now! I hope it works haha!

Vintage Precious said...

Michaela, Thanks! Super cute photo! I finally decided what I am going to do for my avatar.
~tweeted your lovely giveaway :)

Tess said...

This is really interesting, makes you think! I always had a photo of my product for my avatar when I used the forums. But now that I don't so much anymore I use me :) My name is also pretty ambiguous!
I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Sandy said...

I was dealing with the same issue when it came to my blog name and now again with my Etsy shop.
Now I have learned (mostly because I was taking so long deciding) to stick with the name (which are also my initials) and to give my shop name the same letters as my initials. Does that make sense?
And when it comes to the photo...
I read some advice once...
It said don't hide behind a picture of a flower.
People like to see who they are dealing with.
I really appreciate the post though, very interesting. Etsy is at the moment driving me nuts. Uploading all the pix and such...phew.
I hope that eventually I'll get better at it.

by the way...
I am a slight bit envious of the beautiful pictures and the cute model.
It looks very professional. Way to go

Vintage Precious said...

Tess, How funny did you ever think the forums would become a remember when moment? My idea involves me, a dress, my work space and some humor, lol! Still working out the little details. :)

Sandy, Thanks! Very creative on your shop title! Etsy made some changes, hope it helps.:)