Building a brand online is hard. Very hard.
Most people you interact with have never met you in person. They have no idea who you are. What they see is your name. Maybe a Twitter handle.
But that's not how they start recognizing you. It starts with your profile picture. Your avatar.
That leads me to the most important rules of being memorable online:
- Be consistent
- Stand out
Consistency is important. There's a reason why Coca Cola doesn't change their logo every few months. It's branding 101, and it's no different for your personal brand.
How many people's comments, posts and so on do you read every day? A lot. How many of those names or profile pictures do you remember? Not that many. Almost none.
So. Be consistent. Stand out.
I've been fairly good at the former, not so good at the latter. I will break the first rule one last time, to hopefully do better at the latter. Never again.
No more boring headshots.
Let's try something colorful. Something personal.
It stands out. And I'm not going to change it. Ever.
It's also personal. It's actually a self portrait that I painted in junior high school. With one little twist. All the outlines were drawn with my eyes shut.
What about your online identity? What are you going to do to stand out? To be memorable? Personal?
If you want some more inspiration, check out what VC Fred Wilson and entrepreneur Ryan Hoover writes about the topic. They are both experts at this.