Don’t Be a Mystery Person! Create Your Cartoon Character

Posted by Christina Hills | Design Tips | 14

It’s a natural human tendency to want to put a face with a name or a voice. The same is true when we read or hear something online, whether it is an article, blog post, or podcast. We want to know “who is this person that’s talking to me?”

One of the things that can kill your business is not having a photo of yourself online. So many times, I see people on Facebook or elsewhere without a picture of themselves.

Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter

As silly as this may sound, it’s very important to have an image of yourself on the web, especially if you are doing business online.

Without a picture, you are not giving your audience an opportunity to match your words or voice with a face. Instead, they are left to wonder who you are, and they associate you with the “mystery man” image. And — I think this is also something that you should know — if you do not have a photo of yourself, people might even be seeing a different avatar associated with you instead.

Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter

Mystery Man

You don’t want to be a Mystery Person, do you? Here are the downsides I see with this:

It makes you look like a spammer!
People are less likely to trust you because you are not showing who you are.
It doesn’t have any personality… Who would like to communicate with a faceless person?

If you don’t feel comfortable using your own photo, or if you don’t have a photo, then create a cartoon character of yourself!

Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter

This is called “Creating an Avatar”

You can create a cartoon character of yourself, and use that in place of your photo online. This is important for social media profiles, and for the WordPress Gravatar image of yourself.

With WordPress, for example, if you post a comment to somebody’s blog post, it typically shows up with a Gravatar image like this:

Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter

But *if* you don’t have an image set up on Gravatar.com, the comment will show up with that generic “Mystery Person” image or another default image. But the most common Gravatar image is the “Mystery Person”.

(Want to know more about what a Gravatar is? See this video and article here on getting a Gravatar Account )

Here are some free resources for you to create your own cartoon character… Explore and have fun!

Resources to Create a Carton Character of Yourself

Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter

Example Avatar for Christina Hills Team using Face Your Manga

Face Your Manga
http://www.faceyourmanga.it/

Avachara
http://avachara.com/avatar/

DoppelMe
http://www.doppelme.com/

Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter

Example avatar image from face.co

BitMoji
https://www.bitmoji.com/

Face.Co
https://www.face.co/

See if any of these will work for you, and then get rid of that “Mystery Man” !

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LinkedIn
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About The Author

Christina Hills

Christina Hills helps entrepreneurs set up their websites using WordPress without having to rely on a webmaster or any tech people. Her trainings are fun and she makes it easy! Get the free PDF "The Do-It-Yourself Website Creation Checklist" Report Here

14 Comments

Cathy Goodwin on February 12, 2015 at 8:42 am

Yes! I’ve been doing this for years.
- Marge Piatak on February 12, 2015 at 11:14 am
  
  Thanks, Christine, for the great avatar resources. I was totally pulled into “Build your wild self”. Very strange combination I ended up with but I love my unique animal avatar!
  - Christina Hills on February 12, 2015 at 4:23 pm
    
    Yeah you can have a lot of fun!
- Christina Hills on February 12, 2015 at 4:25 pm
  
  Cathy,
  Get yourself a Gravatar.com account so your picture shows up when you comment on a blog
  - Cathy Goodwinc on May 14, 2016 at 1:55 pm
    
    I do have a gravatar account! Isn ‘t that my image?
    - The Christina Hills on May 14, 2016 at 4:41 pm
      
      yes you do, Cathy Goodwin!
      But back in feb 2015 you didn’t. that was an old comment
Percy on February 12, 2015 at 9:39 am

Super fun! I just created a new avatar ( it took me 5 minutes ) from the list I like
http://pickaface.net/index.php Thank you for sharing.
- Christina Hills on February 12, 2015 at 4:24 pm
  
  Percy,
  I have not tried pickaface yet.
  I made mine with Face your Manga
Linda Melcher on February 12, 2015 at 9:43 am

I love this resource. Thanks for all the great ideas!
- Christina Hills on February 12, 2015 at 4:26 pm
  
  Linda,
  me too! fun to play with between projects 🙂
Michelle Gale on February 13, 2015 at 3:38 pm

Christina, if you already have a gravatar but would like to have the option of a cartoon character too, like you have, how can you create one and keep it from replacing the original photo of you unless you want it to?
- Christina Hills on February 13, 2015 at 6:23 pm
  
  Michelle,
  
  Gravatar.com allows you to upload multiple pictures of yourself, without replacing the original one. You just specify which photo is associated
  with which of your multiple emails you put in. So one picture per email.
  So for example you could have michelle@michellegale.com be one photo and Michelle@whitelionesscoaching.com be another.
  🙂
Virginia Reeves on May 13, 2016 at 9:33 am

Michelle – thank you so much for these tips and techniques. Can’t wait to try as I’m one of those camera shy people.
- Christina Hills on May 14, 2016 at 6:25 am
  
  Virginia,
  once you get your picture created, go here and read this post:
  https://websitecreationworkshop.com/wordpress-tips/what-is-a-gravatar-picture/
  
  and get a gravatar account, so your picture will show up when you post online

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Don’t Be a Mystery Person! Create Your Cartoon Character

This is called “Creating an Avatar”