When, some years ago now, I first encountered social media, I was sure it wasn’t for me. I wasn’t interested in posting what I had for lunch. The idea of a “friendserversary” made me want to vomit. I wasn’t all that great at small talk and most of what I could see on social media looked like talk of the smallest kind. I couldn’t imagine why I’d want to be involved.
As time went on, my opinion of social media changed. I learned it was a great way to make connections with people you might not otherwise have ever encountered. Social media could be a great teaching tool. It was a wonderful way to offer support in tough times and to celebrate with others when something went well. Customer service was a natural for social media, and allowed a more personal connection with customers than an e-mail sent through a form on a website. There was a lot of good on social media, and I learned to find that and ignore the stuff that didn’t appeal to me. In short, I discovered how to be the same person on social media that I was in real life.
There were, of course, differences. You can’t, unless you’re video chatting, see someone’s face or hear their voice on social media. So personality is conveyed by words and pictures, and I’ve always been much better at the former than the latter. So I learned to think about pictures, and realized that I wouldn’t always find the perfect image to go with my words, and made myself be o.k. with that fact. I learned to accept that some people like posting forty nine pictures of their cat being cute, and that other people like to celebrate things like “friendserversaries” and that some people really do care about pictures of other people’s dinners, and even, sometimes, to take an interest in those things myself (o.k. not friendserversaries, still hate those), without being ironic or sarcastic about it. Just like my personality has evolved in everyday life, it evolved in the social media space as well. I learned how to be true to my personality on social media, and to present myself without being fake or pretending interest in things that left me cold. If you’re struggling with how to present yourself on social media, here are some tips for figuring out your social media personality.
Tip 1: You Can Make Distinctions – I’m not big on holidays in general, let alone made up ones. I’m not religious, so I’ll tell someone I’ll keep a good thought for them, but won’t offer prayers. If I haven’t made some sort of connection with you so that I feel I have some knowledge of who you are, I probably won’t wish you happy birthday or happy anniversary. As I mentioned earlier, I tend to like deeper connections. I’ll accept any friend request that it makes strategic sense to accept, but just because you’re on my friends list doesn’t mean I consider you a friend. Just like in real life, there are work colleagues, people you network with, and people you’ve made a deeper connection with and share a bit more of yourself with on a regular basis. There’s nothing wrong with making those distinctions. You don’t have to reveal all or give all of yourself to everyone on your friend’s list.
Tip 2: Don’t Be Who You Aren’t – If you’re not particularly a lover of puppies or baby goats, don’t pretend you are. If looking at someone’s dinner makes you inclined to cast up your own, don’t comment or like those pictures. The best way to succeed on social media is to be your genuine self, albeit one with at least your basic party manners on. You don’t have to pretend to care about or like things you don’t care about or like, and you don’t have to spend time interacting with people who annoy you or who hold views you find repugnant. Yes, there are slick profiles out there from people who have a lot of followers and who are very careful to walk the line of never being offensive or controversial, but those people aren’t real. Being real may net you a smaller follower count and generate the possibility that you’ll offend a larger part of the social media universe, but it will also enable you to find your tribe, the people who like you for you. Those are the people with whom you need to connect.
Tip 3: Understand the Consequences – One of the things I always tell people when I lecture or write about this topic is that taking a stand on anything has consequences. The trick is to be aware of the consequences and decide in advance whether advocating a particular cause or viewpoint is worth losing what you might stand to lose. Sometimes you’ll decide that taking up a particular fight or arguing against a particular viewpoint is worth it and, in those cases, it should be full steam ahead. Occasionally, you might see that the fight you’re entertaining putting up is doomed to failure or will cost you more than you want to pay, and you’ll decide that discretion is the better part of valor. Know what you’re getting into before you take the leap, which means making sure that cooler and wiser heads prevail.
Tip 4: Customers Are People Too – Sometimes the only thing you can do is call an asshole an asshole. Customers come in all shapes and sizes. Some will be great and easy to work with. Some will be nitpicky and annoying, but ultimately profitable and worth the extra effort. A few, at least we hope it’s only a few, will just be complete jerks and not worth working with if they paid you a million dollars per job. You have a right to call these people on their unpleasantness. If you do that on social media, however, make sure that you first tell your side of the story, without hostility or anger, being sure to demonstrate that you tried to resolve the situation. There will be situations where the only thing to do is fire the customer, but even that can be done in a way that leaves your image untarnished.
Tip 5: Not Everyone Will Like You – A lot of people view social media as a giant popularity contest with the goal being collecting the most followers or friends. In reality, successfully using social media is more about collecting the right followers or friends, the ones who get what you do, like who you are, and want to be a part of the your world. It’s o.k. if not everyone likes who you are on social media, just as it’s o.k. if not everyone likes who you are in real life. One of the beauties of social media is that there are tons of people on almost every platform. True success on social media comes from being your authentic self and connecting with people for whom that resonates. Not everyone will like you, but you’ll like yourself, and you’ll find your social media profiles much easier to maintain if you’re not trying to be something you aren’t.
