Choosing a profile picture is a self-branding exercise. There’s no right or wrong way to present yourself online but many avatars are boring, forgettable. Here’s a gallery of 99 remarkable, creative, funny and memorable social media avatars. Why did we pick these pics? Check out how to choose an avatar to find out.

Are you in a mono-”logo”s relationship, or play the field when it comes to social network avatars?

Many of us take a number of images for a spin before we settle on “the one.” Some have joined themselves to one and will never look back. While others seem to have a new photo every week.

If you’re tired of the avatar-scene and are looking for a long-term commitment, perhaps it’s time to settle down with a single avatar. Or if you feel your avatar is going nowhere - maybe it’s time to break up.

Decisions, decisions. There are a few questions you must ask yourself:

• Is this just a relationship of convenience? Maybe you selected your profile from the social network’s default. You really gotta believe there is a better avatar out there, even for you.

• Is it purely sentimental? Have you had the same avatar since 2001? Familiarity is comfortable, but you may have outgrown your avatar. I mean, I’ve had many lovely walks along the beach with my Discman, but come on.

• Is your avatar a cheat? It seemed all fine and dandy when you turned yourself into a South Park character, but now you see your picture in other places, wearing other clothes, and with slightly different hairstyles…and you’re beginning to get suspicious.

• Does your avatar share your interests and future goals? An avatar is a personal brand, don’t waste your time if you’re not compatible. Eventually there will come a time when you will inevitably move on.

• Do your friends like your avatar? In a way, your avatar is a reflection of you - your avatar shouldn’t be boring or rude. In fact, if you have an outgoing avatar, it can introduce you to a LOT of new people.

• Can you bring your avatar home to mother? I think this is self-explanatory.

• Is your avatar high-maintenance? Does your picture need constant fussing and resizing for it to look good every time you take it somewhere new?

If you answered yes or no to one or more of the above questions, you may or may not need to break up with your avatar. But if you’ve read this far, please read on for some tips on what makes attractive, long-term avatars:

Logos

Logos are a great way to brand your blog or business, for obvious reasons. If you’re familiar with a blog or company, you’ll recognize the logo as a representative of that brand right off the bat. The risk here is there’s always a possibility you change jobs / careers and your avatar or user handle becomes outdated.

Examples

SEMvironment and Ecogeek’s logos communicate the green focus of their businesses. If your avatar somehow ties into what you do, that can be even more effective.

Another downside of using your logo is if your company has multiple people, it’s confusing if more than one person uses the logo. Who gets to use the logo? How will others in the company brand themselves?

I have yet to see this, but think it would be a neat idea if a company that gets its team to take similar avatar photos. Perhaps all wearing funny hats, tuxedos, team jerseys, doctor’s uniforms or even bobbleheads…

Characterize Yourself

I don’t mean Simpsonize yourself. I mean create a persona like The Mad Hat, Fantomaster, Slightly Shady SEO, Google Tutor, Incredible Help, OnReact or John Cow:

Caricaturize Yourself

Chris Hooley, Rohit Bhargava, Joost de Valk, Barry Schwartz, Andy Sernovitz, Shawn Collins and Jeffrey Zeldman are a few examples of personal caricatures.

Brand Yourself as a Celebrity Character

If you’re lucky enough to share a name with a popular cartoon character like Sebastian or Duff Man, you can go this route.

If you don’t have a name-connection, it’s less effective just to borrow a character. Chances are there are six or seven or eight others who had the same bright idea.

Use an Unusual Headshot

Black and white headshots can stand out because they’re less common, but stand out more with any interesting angle of your head. Examples from Bill Slawski, Muhammad Saleem and Shana Albert.

Bright colored backgrounds work, too. Examples from Ciaran Norris and Lyndon Antcliff:

Lyndoman also uses a half-head, a great technique shared by Wiep Knol and Matt McGee:

Or turn your head, touch your face, rotate your photo, paint your face…or use a prop!

Combine Logo with Photo

Best of both worlds. Robert Raught and Stefan Juhl do this well. Their choice of white background also makes it easier to see. In Robert’s case, you also know his occupation without clicking through to his profile page.

Adopt a Pet

Advertising execs know you can’t go wrong with baby animals. In social media, monkeys are particularly effective (perhaps because they’re almost people?) The pros are that animals are memorable and often funny. The downside is an animal doesn’t say anything about you or your business, unless it ties in with your name (maybe your name is Cat or your nickname is Bart the Bear).

Use an Inanimate Object

Attention-grabbing, stands out amongst the sea of faces and easy for people to remember, a single object can be a good avatar choice. Robert Gorell goes retro with a cassette tape (although this will alienate anyone born after 1985), Kristen Munson has her red stillettos (would be neat to where those to the conference!) and “Wingnut” has his…wingnut.

Want more inspiration? Check out more amazing avatars.

Today kicks off a weekly tradition (though definitely not original) here at Get Elastic. Every Friday I will be posting a Blogger’s Digest that recognizes outstanding content from around the web of interest to ecommerce marketers, managers, bloggers and SEO-types to give you some rainy day reading for the weekend (especially if you’re in Vancouver/Seattle).

Ecommerce News

• Bad news for Yahoo Stores as Cyber Monday traffic crashes the platform and brings down 3 million online shops.

Search Engine Optimization

Lee Lefever over at Common Craft has blessed the ‘Net with the Paperworks Series, a collection of educational videos geared at anyone who wants to know the lowdown on how social bookmarking, RSS, Wikis and social networking works.


Social Bookmarking In Plain English

Continue Reading:
Social Media in Plain English »

I love it when the “little guy” does something that I haven’t even seen on some of the larger sites I cite as examples here on the Get Elastic Ecommerce Blog. I recently bought a few items from C28, a Christian-lifestyle-clothing shop in California and noticed they were doing a couple of cool things I’d never seen before.

Even when scoping out sites for personal purchases, my usability consultant’s hat is always on. (It’s like those people who take film studies and can never watch a movie the same.) So I was really impressed by this virtual unknown offering features like “Email Me if My Size is Re-stocked” and “Email Me Before This Item Sells Out.” I even went to the search engine to see if I could find another site with this features (after trying a variety of word combinations) and so far haven’t found any. If you’ve seen another store doing something similar, please comment.

Continue Reading:
Small Etailer Packs Big Usability Features »

As Internet Retailer winds down (you can hear packing tape in action in the background), Dave enjoys a candid and humorous chat with Ted Demopolous, author of Blogging for Business and other books (including What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting).

They discuss the power of blog comments, sock puppet blogs, being a dull person and how blogs shorten sales cycles with plenty of examples and anecdotes including how to buy a hammock.

MP3 File

[Reposted with updated audio] At Book Expo of America in NYC, Dave O checks in with Joe Beaulaurier of PR Web to discuss when - and how - to send a press release and discuss the useful social networking features built-in to to PRWeb’s distribution system to encourage conversation and increase distribution of media releases.

Subscribe to Elastic Path’s Press Releases via PR Web RSS.

MP3 File

Social Media maven and e-tailer Pinny Gwinish of Ice.com makes his 2nd appearance on the Get Elastic podcast to talk about the effects on viral video on ecommerce sales. Topics include acquiring domain names, investing in equipment, forthcoming videos and raising conversion rates. See (hilarious) videos at Pinny’s World and Mr. Cupid on You Tube.

MP3 File

[Photo of Ice.com's Pinny Gwinish at eTail UK by Dave Olson]

If you’ve heard of Twitter, you either love it or can’t understand what all the Tweet’s about. A fairly new social media phenomenon, Twitter is a mashup between intant messaging and blogging, allowing users to give subscribers (friends/stalkers) updates on what you’re doing. Users can receive twitter updates via instant message, email, SMS (text messages – yes this costs money) or more recently, through Facebook.

Twitter’s been steadily growing in popularity, and now a couple e-commerce sites have pioneered the application to integrate with their own sites.

Woot.com

If you haven’t heard about Woot, it’s an online shopping site with a twist – one product, one day only. When it’s all sold out, that’s it until the next day when a new product is featured. And it’s insanely popular (at least amongst the geeknorati). Here’s a more detailed and entertaining explanation of Woot’s raison d’etre, and a Wikipedia article if you’re keen.

So now you can stay in the know about Woot’s product of the day via SMS or instant message by signing up with Twitter and subscribing to Woot’s feed by clicking “Add Woot” under the “Actions” box. And you’ll also receive notification when the product’s sold out.

What I think is missing from Woot is a call-to-action to subscribe to the Twitter feed on their website.

Amazon.com

Someone beat Amazon to the username punch, but you can see the feed here under Amazondeals. Here you’ll get every update from Amazon’s Gold Box Deal of the Day.

Twitter feeds are an easy and cheap way for any e-tailer to use social media. Just be sure to build your following by letting site users know that you’re Tweeting deals and news. Add a call-to-action button on your site, blog about it and notify your opt-in subscribers.

What is social shopping? It’s essentially a mashup that resembles social bookmarking, social networking and comparison shopping in a blender. A bunch of flavors of social shopping websites have popped up as of late, creating a great opportunity for online retailers to engage in some low-cost word-of-mouth marketing.

We’ve hunted down a number of different sites that you can submit your retail products to, and provided a brief summary of each site’s features. Since you never know where a sale is going to come from, it’s worth it to get into as many of these sites as you can and track which bring success and which are just a hassle.

Social Shopping Bookmarking Sites (or “Social Wishlists”)

These sites allow you to bookmark, tag, share and even blog products you like. Some allow you to join groups or even earn revenue from your picks.

Here’s a tip: if you’re going to submit your own products – tag with reckless abandon. Browse popular tags for ideas (as they will be surfed often) and also more targeted, specific terms, to maximize your likelihood of being found using search boxes.

	Join groups, create wishlists, email products to friends, add product lists to your blog or MySpace, and easily submit products here.
	Add a bookmarklet to your browser and off you go. Search for products by category and user lists, add friends, join groups and comment on products and people. Kaboodle auto-creates product descriptions when you bookmark items.
	Wists (weblists - get it?) gives users a way to keep all their wishlists in one place, rather than in each individual e-store. The description copy and paste may seem tedious but gives you more control than Kaboodle’s autogenerated description. And if you want to encourage bookmarking, Wists’ got a chicklet. See Wists in action.
	In addition to the typical bookmark / add comments / join groups / add friends options, you can also “follow” your friends or random stranger style mavens a la Twitter. And they’ve included a social media 1.0 feature: a forum.
	Yet another bee-branded social shopping site … WhatsBuzzing is the Stumbleupon of social shopping. Users browse storefronts, rather than individual items to discover e-stores and get ideas before going comparison shopping. Tag storefronts, add to favorite list and add friends. You can’t submit your store, if you’re buzzworthy they’ll find you.
	Bookmark products, email to friends, and subscribe to RSS feeds of other users’ picks. Doesn’t look like you can add friends — yet. There’s 2 ways you can add your product: enter the name, URL, or UPC code of the item or add a browser icon and bookmark a product from it’s product page. And you can “Shopcast” by adding a badge or feed of your list to your blog. Kudos to the designers, the blog posts look really slick.
	Lacks the social features like adding a community, but you can tag your items. Unfortunately it’s attracting a lot of irrelevant spam that appears at the top of all product listings (with no images) and the design is nothing compared to other sites, nevertheless a site to submit products to.
	Pick products from MyPickList’s merchant network, earn commissions from a number of stores and share a slideshow of your pick list with a widget supported by a number of blogs and social networks. Add friends and message users. If you’re listed in Amazon, Buy.com or other participating merchants, you can get in on the action and recommend your own products.
	Social by virtue of being a wiki, add a product, subscribe to RSS feeds, tap items as “love it,” “want it” and “have it.”

Social Deals and Coupons Sites

	Find deals on specific items, browse posted coupon codes and special offers from Dealplumber’s database, or post your product or affiliate product coupons. “Free Stuff” and “Free Shipping” categories, too. Pipe your products here.
	Free listings for merchants, woot-woot! Add a button to your bookmarks toolbar or submit your deals here one by one. Join groups, tag, browse, and keep your peeps updated with Twitter tweets.
	Submit deals, rate, surf, repeat. You can also earn revenue when people click on AdSense around your posted deals. (Sounds like an invitation for click fraud…) This site is really in its infancy, with not many deals, categories or members, but a one to watch.
	Social dealmarking with community voting — best deals rise to the top. Deals come from sites like Dealnews, BensBargains, Woot and from registered users.
	Just like Dealcritic, but with much better organization/categories, and options to subscribe to RSS feeds for hot deals, all deals and freebies. Plus Dealspl.us runs giveaway contests. An added incentive to invite friends, if they win a prize, you win too.
	Like a deal search engine. Users submit deals and then vote on them, but the site lacks tags and categorization. Users must browse the “popular” list or use the search box and hope for the best. Posting a deal is easy.

Social Comparison Engines

Now for some gray-area social shopping sites. The following are comparison engines which have either social shopping features, or a free way of submitting your own products to them, and thus being worthy of honorable mention here for etailers looking to cast a broad net over sites that we believe are going to take off.

	A visual search engine that lets you zoom in on a detail of a product and see similar items based on colour, shape, pattern, price etc. Categories include watches, shoes, handbags, jewellery, clothing. Etailers can add individual products, or email to submit a feed or link. Helps if you have an affiliate program, you may pay per click or per sale, Like.com supports both models.
	This ain’t your Grandma’s online craft fair. Modern Etsy exlusively lists hand made products, with a whack of Web 2.0 goodies that makes Etsy so sticky — including the Geolocator and Shop by Color. Users can create their own lists in the Treasury. Merchants get a free username.etsy.com account for free, and can list products for $0.20 per quantity, with a 3.5% of sales fee. Listings live for 4 months.
	Crowdstorm is like MySpace, Digg and Shopping.com in a blender. You can build your social network, “Recommend” products (Digg-style voting system) and search and browse products like any comparison shopping engine. It’s easy to submit products, but here’s the catch — users will be directed to Amazon or Ebay to make a purchase. So this works best if you’re an etailer already using these channels.
	Sound like a place to unload your Redwings Bobblehead collection? Think again. Hawkee is a social network for tech afficianados where you’ll find user-posted coupons and deals, product reviews and code snippets in addition to comparison shopping. Hawkee uses feeds direct from retailers, not from other shopping engines so drop them a line for more info on getting listed.
	Fivelimes is an eco-friendly shopping community where you can find sustainable products and services. Browse by categories (no tags), shop locally or browse reviews. Submit a product URL you know about, or join the Vendor Program which works on a cost-per-click basis.
	Crawls the web picking up products from etailers on its own. Unfortunately some products are outdated. Really cool color search feature. Doesn’t accept merchant product feeds but you can add your e-store URL here. Or read more about getting listed.
	The social sister of comparison engine Buy.com, at Yub (Buy in reverse) you can shop for over 6 million products, receive cash-back discounts, and shop with your friends. Write reviews and earn commissions when users buy through you. The Meet People feature is tres MySpace. Another reason to get listed in the Buy.com marketplace.
	Yahoo! Answers approach to the purchase decision. (Run by Yahoo! Shopping, guess where product results come from). Hint: if you spot a “powwow” (thread) related to your e-store’s products, you can drop a link in there. Sell individual items Craigslist-style by starting a new pow-wow and uploading an image from Photobucket.
	Like Yub, offers members discounts, splitting their affiliate commissions with the buyer 50/50. Advertisers are ranked my how much discount they offer buyers. Works on a “Cost per Sale” model so advertisers can keep a fixed return on ad spend. Send Jellyfish and email to join the merchant program. And did I mention Smack Shopping - Jellyfish’s Deal or No Deal-style online Dutch auction? (Just check out the link for a great video explanation &/or listen to Smack Talk about Transparent Shopping - Get Elastic #30 from eTail West)
	Site looks great, but not the most intuitive site to figure out (what’s the “Download” for?). You can earn 25-50% affiliate commission on products “suggested” from the Usuggest merchant database. Tagline is “Shoppers Helping Shoppers” but may end up more like “affiliates selling to affiliates”…and we know affiliates will always buy from themselves. Needs a widget to post to blog to market outside of the community. Unfortunately no information on how to add your products to their network.

Definitely are interesting space to watch and we are all curious about how the social shoposphere will evolve, however more awareness among the general public is needed. So go sign up and tell ten friends!

Did we miss your favorite site? Something you want someone to build? What missing from social commerce site? What’s the real value? Drop us a comment to share your experiences with social shopping.

UPDATED AUGUST 6, 2007: