Online, it’s easy to adopt any personality you like. You can even pretend to be of the opposite gender if you so choose. The point is that no one knows you online, so you can literally be anyone. And many people choose to change themselves and present a more scholarly persona.
While there are occasionally reasons to change your online persona (such as when you’re on a company account), it really is best to just be yourself. There are a few reasons for this:
Better Off-Line Experience. When people meet you in real life, they’ll already know what you’re like. You might not think you’ll ever actually meet anyone that you interact with online, but these days, more and more people are meeting in real life, after knowing each other online. Meetups, tweetups and such are all times when you could be meeting others from your Twitter network and they’ll probably notice how different you are!
Relax and Focus. It’s also a lot easier to keep up your real personality. If you’re trying to be someone you aren’t, it can be very difficult to keep it up and you’re likely to slip up. If someone realizes that you are essentially lying about who you are, you will lose credibility. There’s no point in losing trust for no good reason. You can relax and focus on your social media goal without having to guard a fake personality.
Only you are the You. The final and best argument for just being yourself online is that you are the only you. Everyone is unique and you are the only person who can really be yourself on social media! By portraying your real personality, you’re bound to stand out because you ARE unique! There’s no need to try hard to be someone more exciting or interesting. You might not be as wild or hilarious as some people out there and that’s ok. By being who you really are, you’ll find that people respond to you and you’ll have loyal followers who are interested in you for you. Why do you think we love @GaryVee talking about m&m flavor in his wine?
Are you being yourself online? Why or why not? Share your reasons in the comments, I’d love to hear what you think.
