A traditional headshot in the past was used to present an image of professionalism to potential clients and business partners. The likelihood of anyone outside of this narrow group ever seeing the image remained minimal at best, your pr firm may have used it in a brochure or even put it on your business card. Traditionally these business portraits were used to build trust with people who may not have constant contact with you, professions like lawyers and real estate agents frequently updated their headshot to show their client they can still smile. (okay that last part was a dig from me.)
Google changed everything. Now it is standard practice to google new hires and potential clients prior to meeting them and see the drunken pictures from that frat party in college on your myspace page and the business headshot in the brochure. There is a merging of personal and professional lives that is more often than not referred to as Personal Branding or Gary Vaynerchuk- (made you look) 
The definition for avatar above seems to cover a lot of ground and is generalized for many different applications. Let’s define it for us: A social media avatar is an online representation of who you are online. It may be a logo, text, image or picture, it may even be nothing at all. For me it is a quick way to identify contacts on my IM client or filter a constant stream of information on twirl. For most of us online an avatar is a square image that should simultaneously embody your self image and your perceived self along with representing who you are to your closest friends and how you want to be perceived by strangers.
Look at your current Avatar– Is that image really accomplishing these tasks?
There are almost as many ways to use social media tools as there are people using them.
One of the ways I am trying to use these tools is to open up the process of photography to my audience. I recently started a new flickr account called tysoncrosbieEdit, it is a place where an audience can go to see a soft edit from a photo shoot and through participating there can make a difference in the final decisions. MsHerr for example posted on her blog an open invite to her community to crowd source her final selection. Effectively leaving the entire process of selecting her online identity to an audience that already interacted with her in this online space. A brave move certainly, but when considering personal branding in social media it is important to understand the perceptions of your audience as well as you understand your own motivations for using this space and the only way to gain that understanding is to allow for participation.
Whether we like it or not education changes us, and the experience of participating (even if it is just to say “I like this one.”) garners understanding. The end result is a community that understands the tools and the process, and that community is better equipped to make judgments when hiring their next photographer. It is this potential to educate a broader audience about good photography vs bad that really excites me.
Participation requested below, leave a comment and help me understand.
I enjoyed helping out / participating in both selections showed above. I think it is important to get a good first impression down, and that will, of course, be different depending on the profession and the ‘tude or tone you’re trying to get across.
I’m more abstract and like to have images that might represent different aspects of my personality, but always have the professional portrait or even decent candid available to see, as well, prominent on my web site (which currently it’s not as a matter of fact.
The only trouble with this, that I can see, is that then people can be judged EVEN MORE on their looks then they already are. Still, that’s a reality these days - and it’s much better than drunk and falling down. (Strangely, though, that seems to make you more marketable if you aspire to be a singer and dancer and actor / actress all at once.)
Though it’s a different discussion, words are at least as important if your medium is words. and in some way, most careers involve being able to write well without obvious or piles of errors. (Comment sections of blogs should be exempted)
-Temple
Attraction is complicated, to judge on looks is mostly evolutionary, to judge on our beliefs is human, to judge by understanding is exceptional.
(forgive me, I steal souls for a living)
Tyson, I’ve recently begun thinking I need a new online avatar. Not that mine is 100% lame, just that it can be better. MsHerr and TempleStark have excellent avatars, and while jmoriarty isn’t what I’d want for myself, I assume it fits him to the T. I’ll be in contact…
business cards onlineling your brand online - The Avatar | tyson crosbie /blog