In an previous article, I discussed why people have avatars and how they can be dangerous for business purposes if used inappropriately.
I used Facebook and MySpace as prime examples.
Here, I will discuss avatar use in Twitter.

• Twitter

Social media, and especially twitter, is all about building relationships.
Your avatar is the very first step in building that relationship because it is the first thing someone sees as you tweet.
That is why it is so important to have an avatar which correctly projects who you are.
For example, you may have a dynamite business, but how could anyone really take you seriously if your avatar is that of you with your shirt off (male) or with your boobs hanging out of a low cut shirt (female).
While you may feel an avatar such as that may show off your best features, you may find that the business you are looking for from twitter, just does not happen.
Those avatars may attract lots of people.
However, most likely those people you attract would not be the type of customers you would want to attract (unless, of course, that is what you are trying to sell!) I remember a couple of years ago, this person was trying to convince me to do business coaching with him.
However, his avatar was of him standing in a yard with his shirt off, flexing.
That was so totally inappropriate for an alleged professional coach, that I had absolutely no desire to coach with him.
A good example of a very bad avatar! What was sad was he did not have a clue as obviously, he thought he had a great avatar.
It is not the bare skin that is necessarily the bad choice because a family shot of you and the kids at the beach in bathing suits, might be a perfectly acceptable and a totally appropriate avatar.
That is especially true if that was somehow connected to who you were and made people want to know you better.
Again, it all goes back to building relationships.
Who do you want to do business with? And what do you want to project with your avatar? People often times use their business logo as their avatar on twitter.
However, people do not want to do business with a logo.
They want to do business with a real person.
A business logo does not really define who you are while a picture will do just that.
The best avatar is some sort of a shot of you, either a full body shot or head shot.
It does not have to be professionally done and can be a fun shot that attracts a reader's eye.
You do not want it too far away so you can not make out who is in the picture, and not too serious that you look like a dead fish.
If you make it interesting and fun, people will be drawn to it and want to know more about you.
And that is the beginning of building the relationship! Once they want to know more about you, you will start a dialog.
The dialog will turn into a conversation and there is a great chance, that the conversation will turn into business.
But it all starts with the avatar.
Choose carefully, have fun and let's see your smiling face!