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Connecting WordPress with Social Media
Gravatar, avatars and linking to social media through WordPress Global.
If you have blog content, you may want your readers to share that content. In this article, Linda offers a variety of ways to help your readers share what you've written. The focus in this article is on Gravatar, avatars and linking to social media through WordPress Global.
Using Avatars in Self-Hosted WP Blogs
If you are hosting a WP blog on a server outside WP, you'll see how you can manage your avatars in the Dashboard if you go to "Settings > Discussion." Scroll down that page to the bottom, where you'll see this information:
In the image above, you can see choices to show or not show avatars, choices for ratings, and choices for default avatars for others who do not use an avatar. From these settings, you can see how comments look on one of my sites, lindagoin.com:
Yes, I chose a very complimentary response to one of my poems at that site for this example. Who wouldn't? The arrow points to the person who does not have an avatar. In my previous settings, I chose the "mystery man" for the default avatar, but other choices can be more colourful. I don't know how Neil created his avatar, but – by the mere fact that it shows – it means that he has created an avatar and that it is available to show up on any site uses and accepts avatars.
Note that my public image avatar, the beak nose profile compared to penguins with same, is used here in this blog. Rest assured that, if I choose to comment on any other blog tapped into using Gravatar avatars (or avatars in general), this same image will show up there as well.
This similarity of image across the board works wonderfully to help people connect you to a face, a logo, or a piece of your artwork for that matter. Use consistency, especially with a logo (in other words, don't change up the avatar unless you design a new logo). But, feel free to change up your logo across the board if you feel you need to change it. Once you change the image in the avatar, it is change globally, across all WP sites or any other sites that recognize Gravatar avatars now, in the future and – incredibly – also in any past comments or posts you have created. This makes your avatar virtually seamless.
Linda Goin
Linda Goin carries an A.A. in graphic design, a B.F.A. in visual communications with a minor in business and marketing and an M.A. in American History with a minor in the Reformation. While the latter degree doesn't seem to fit with the first two educational experiences, Linda used her 25-year design expertise on archaeological digs and in the study of material culture. Now she uses her education and experiences in social media experiments.
Accolades for her work include fifteen first-place Colorado Press Association awards, numerous fine art and graphic design awards, and interviews about content development with The Wall St. Journal, Chicago Tribune, Psychology Today, and L.A. Times.