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What I Learned as a Social Media Fake: Part 1
Posted on January 28, 2011 by — No Comments
Social media turns out to be one place you can’t fake it until you make it.
About six months ago, I decided to create a fake online persona. As a creative person, I wanted to stretch beyond the everyday. I wanted to tackle topics of personal interest. (I also wondered if I could get paid for writing great content, until I remembered that is what I do every day.)
The problem was the “stretch beyond the everyday.” There is the sticky situation of my “personal brand.” As the owner of a growing public relations consultancy, I became more and more purposeful about my online presence, sharing content as a publisher, rather than a person. I avoided expressing opinions on politics, religion and every other deadly sin of polite conversation, worrying that it could not only impact my family’s financial and personal security, but potentially those of everyone else who chooses to do business with me.
So I created a fake social media presence in order to be the real me. At first, it was fun and cool. My Twitter influence scores soared as a fake, but started swooning as a real person. Which was not only bad for business, it was a little weird. Turns out, the only thing worse than offensive is boring.
Furthermore, just like my real social media activities, I was quickly meeting friends as a fake. That’s the point of social media.
Then my stepson almost died in a road accident. And I found out I really couldn’t fake it.
Read What I Learned as a Social Media Fake: Part 2
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