I was chatting with a friend on Facebook this evening and noticed she had changed her profile picture. I asked why she had decided to do this, and she asked me if something was wrong with the new picture she had chosen. The picture was perfectly fine, but it raised an issue for discussion about branding and how it applies to internetwork marketing. I told her I feel it is important to stay consistent if you're using social networking and article submission sites, especially when it comes to your profile picture. It's all about proper branding.

Internetwork marketing is also commonly referred to as attraction network marketing. This refers to the principle that instead of approaching your prospects to pitch your opportunity, you build a presence as a solutions provider and people will soon become attracted to you, and seek you out. There are various ways to do this on the internet. They include article writing, social networking, blogging, video production and bookmarking, to name a few. What they all generally have in common is some sort of profile associated with the account, whether it be a blog, a Squidoo lens, or a bookmarking site. These profiles will almost always have the option of uploading your own picture. This may end up being one of the most important decisions you can make early on.

Your profile picture helps to brand you in the eyes of the people visiting your content. Your picture will allow them to connect with you in a way that your words won't. It has the ability to let your audience know what kind of person you are. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and in this case that might be an understatement. When it comes to attraction marketing, it goes even further than that.

As mentioned, a main objective of creating a web of content across the internet is to brand yourself as a solutions provider. You want people to begin to recognize you from other content they have come across written or produced by you in the past, and make a connection that you are someone who has valuable knowledge to share on the subject matter. Your name will be much less likely to strike that chord of familiarity than a picture will, at least for most people. Using the exact same picture everywhere will be more effective than an array of various pictures from one profile to the next. You want your audience to recognize you as easily as possible, and make the connection that they have seen you before.

If you change your picture from one profile to the next, you are losing out on some of this potential branding opportunity. This is also true if you tend to change your profile picture a lot on social networking sites. Of course, your close friends will recognize you easily, but when you make an announcement on Twitter or Facebook, for example, those people that know you from other articles you've written might not make the connection that you're the same person.

Many studies have shown that it takes multiple exposures to any product or service before a person is willing to buy. In the case of attraction marketing, you are selling "You, inc.", and you want your customer to recognize your brand wherever and whenever they come across you.

Of course, the situation may change once you've sufficiently branded yourself so that people recognize you by name. Ann Sieg and Mike Klingler are both people that others now recognize by name, so they have a little more latitude when it comes to changing their pictures.

Hopefully you are now a little more aware of the importance of a profile picture if you are trying to establish yourself as an internet marketer. My picture certainly isn't perfect, and if I had to do it over again from the beginning, I might have a professional head shot taken. There are pros and cons of that when it comes to attraction marketing, but that is something we'll get into at a later time.