Have you ever met a Twitter friend for the first time in real life and found out that they are the exact opposite of their online persona? Either they’re not very socially savvy (aka socially awkward) , have a raunchy sense of humor that you never saw or some other quirk which never came across online. You are not alone, my friend…we’ve all been there.
Some may say it’s because being witty in 140 characters may not translate well in a in-person conversation. Quick wit is great, but in real life , you need some filler. Or maybe it’s because, unlike Twitter, there are no re-dos or deleting words that come out of your mouth. I can’t even count the number of times that I’ve sat for 10+ minutes trying to compose a tweet so it sounded just right. Or the amount of times where I looked back at a tweet or a Facebook post, and deleted it.
Let’s face it, it’s easier to create a persona online and roll with it and I admit it: I’m guilty of having a Twitter persona that’s not 100% me.
A few weeks ago, I took a look back at my tweets from the previous few months, and realized that I strived to make my Twitter persona the perfect social media person, and in actuality, I’m far from that. I’m only partially witty (and it definitely isn’t quick wit). I have an extremely embarassing goofy/corny sense of humor. And there are some things that I completely geek out over..Zelda…but none of my Twitter followers would know that.
With me, as with I’d assume a majority of people, my Facebook “me” was so much closer to my personality than my Twitter representative was. I became so hyper-aware of how I wanted to be represented that I became a robot. Tweeting articles which I thought people would want to read, saying things that I thought my followers would want to retweet, engaging with the high rollers of Twitter, just to get their attention…and the list goes on. There was no more Ashley — I had become the perfect @digitalmktggirl. But it was with good reason, at least I thought. All the articles and books said that I had to create my online brand, so I did just that. I became “The Ashley Corporation” — dry, boring, and…corporate. Not someone that anyone would truly want to engage with.
So, with this epiphany, I pledge to make 2012 the year that Facebook Ashley aka “the real Ashley” = Twitter Ashley. Because I’m good enough, smart enough and gosh darn it, people like me.
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