A friend asked me the other day how I decide what to share online, and what not to.
He’d noticed that I started talking more and more about stuff outside of work and marketing: mental health, the dog rescue work I do, my personal experiences and values and beliefs.
It’s a considered risk, and one a lot of people aren’t comfortable taking. Many people try to keep the lines hard and fast. You’re either personal online and no business, or you’re all business and you keep the personal out of it.
I’m both, I guess. Which means I’m not everyone’s flavor, and that’s okay with me. So here’s a bit about why I’ve chosen to be open and honest online, and what that experience has been like.
People aren’t automatons.
Last I checked, I was actually a living, breathing human being. I wasn’t just a marketing and business machine.
I have feelings, thoughts, opinions, humor, good days, bad days, friends, family, pets, a job, hobbies, and lots of things I’m interested in intellectually. I’m multi-dimensional, and I like it that way.
It’s a choice. Some people work hard on the “personal brand” thing and want to be known for one thing and one thing only. They might want their digital presence to be a means to a end to drive leads for their business or get speaking gigs or sell online courses. That’s all fine. It’s just a choice.
I much prefer a bit of humanity both in my own content as well as in the streams of those I follow. I like knowing the people behind the work. Your mileage may vary.
We’re setting dangerous standards for ourselves (and others, for that matter).
One of the most pernicious issues of our digital world right now is the carefully curated, cultivated, filtered ideal we’ve created. (So much so that I’m writing a book about it.)
While we sit and post our carefully edited photos and regale our friends and followers about our charmed life, most of us sit behind the phone or the keyboard wondering when we’re ever going to catch up, when we’re ever going to be enough, why we can’t find the success so many others seem to have easily stumbled upon.
Ugh.
While we hoped that social was going to encourage realness and authenticity, I think in some ways it’s done anything but. While the jackasses of the world are perfectly comfortable being their jackass selves thanks to the steroid shot of keyboard anonymity, the rest of us look around at how others appear and relentlessly compare ourselves to what’s happening out there. And whether we like it or not, we conform to it. We say a little less, or say it a little differently.
We “keep it positive” so as not to offend the shiny happy people. We only post the fifteenth, carefully lit and filtered selfie, not the one we actually took the first time. We share our successes, minimize our failures, stay quiet about our struggles. Weakness and messiness, after all, aren’t attractive.
I call bullshit.
Stigmas only die when they’re brought out of the darkness.
Many now know that I’m a fierce advocate for mental health, largely because of some of my own experiences with anxiety and depression since college.
The over-filtering isn’t going to help people feel safer and more secure about discussing these things. And I think that’s a really big problem.
Since when are human flaws and chronic illnesses the measure of a person’s character? Since when do we think Jane is amazing…until she talks about having a bad day, or expresses doubt, or admits to fear? Our standards for what is “real” have gotten so warped, we’re shoving so many people into silence because they’re sure they’ll be even more broadly rejected than they already feel if they share their struggles.
So, I decided to be a poster child for my own theory. I think that if we drag these issues, kicking and screaming if we must, into the light, they can’t possibly fester and rot in the darkness like they usually have. Turn on the lights, and the monster under the bed is really an old sock. I’m not diminishing the severity of these issues, quite the contrary. I’m saying they DESERVE the light of day, our attention, our focus, our acceptance if we’re ever going to see them for what they are and address them as a very real, very present, very human part of our society.
And being judged doesn’t scare me anymore. So I’m going to lead by example, put it out there, talk about it, and hopefully in the process give someone else the courage to raise their own voice. If not on the internet, at least to their family or their doctor or their spouse or someone that loves them and can help them.
That seems like a worthwhile tradeoff for the jackwagons that might find me untoward for talking about my depression on Facebook (yes, they exist, I promise).
I am not my job. Plus, that’s boring.
Back to the job thing.
Back in 2008, I made quite a name for myself (accidentally, mostly) as a social media blogger and “Twitter famous” person. I wrote about what I knew – marketing – and people liked it so they read it.
But after a while, you can only answer so many questions about marketing. Or at least I can.
I’ve always appreciated being professionally acknowledge for my skill set. After all, that’s what allows me to keep a great job and talk to cool clients and do what I believe to be interesting, meaningful work to advance businesses into a digital world.
But that’s not the sum total of who I am. Just like I’m not my depression or anxiety, or I’m not just a mom, or I’m not just a woman, I’m not just a marketer.
I also realize that I am defying the advice of many dozens if not hundreds of my peers by letting the peas touch the mashed potatoes here and blending my personal and professional.
But as a result of this exploration, I think I’ve come up with a better “why” for myself than I had before. Because I think what I do is more than marketing and communications.
I help humans find their voice.
Sometimes, that’s through the lens of business and a brand to tell their story. Sometimes that’s a person who has learned to give validity to their fears and doubts for the first time. Sometimes it’s someone who finally gets help for their depression or anxiety. Sometimes it’s someone taking a leap of faith to write that blog or article or book.
For whatever reason, my ability to speak and share out loud empowers others to do the same. And I think that’s a hell of a “why”. So I’m sticking with it, and I’m refusing to box it into just “marketing”. Kottler eat your heart out.
All this to say…
This is a really long-winded way to say that I choose what to share online by knowing I want to do three important things:
- Express myself, because I find doing so helps me understand myself
- Help others find their own voice, because I know how powerful it is to do so
- Find my common humanity with others, and let them know they’re not alone.
You can do it differently. You can have different goals. You can decide this kind of path isn’t for you.
But I’ve found mine, and I intend to walk it with my head held high and my writing brain at the ready. Because I think we need more voices, not fewer.
And I hope all of this can help you find yours, too.
Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! 1000 times yes! Amber, you are a true inspiration. Thank you so much for paving the path for so many of us who are in your wake. You are courageous and I am so grateful to learn from you.
Thanks so much, Andrea. I’m just learning as I go, and trying to share what I learn along the way. Thanks for always being so supportive!
“We say a little less, or say it a little differently.”
So true! Cannot remember the number of times I have edited and re-edited Twitter posts only to not post them at all.
Thank you for writing this; for showing the courage to say it like it is. It’s not really hard but we make it so and then we can’t break out of it.
Thank you again!
It’s hard! Sometimes the editing is good, sometimes it’s stifling. And it can be really hard to know the difference. So it IS hard. There’s a lot of nuance to it. Keep at it, you’ll find your stride, and as time goes on, I think we all find that we care a little bit less what other people think. 🙂
1) I am so not my job or what I ‘do’ – been rewriting my ‘about’ page to emphasis just that. 2) The over filtering is a problem, and an unfortunate side effect of the backlash and the knee jerk reaction culture to anything that’s not filtered and sterile and processed, that can be nitpicked into a media hype ready ‘controversy.’
Like Meghana, I’ve edited and questioned does something ‘belong’ more on FB or Twitter or both. I’m working on not worrying about it so much. Why? Because humans curse and tell bad jokes and make mistakes. People drink and live lives and act silly and stupid sometimes. Doesn’t mean they are all bad or that they always should be fired for ‘one dumb post.’ And if someone doesn’t want to hire me because I drink wine and play cards late on a week night, then they’re not the one for me anyway. FWIW.
The hard part is that in certain circumstances, we NEED to “be our job” to get the attention of the right person for a project or a professional opportunity. It’s a balance I’m always striking, and I don’t always get it right. Over the years, I’ve certainly missed opportunities because I wasn’t willing to relentlessly focus on my business persona.
As for being you, I wholeheartedly agree. Aside from doing anything illegal or blatantly unethical, I want to work with people who “get” me. Sometimes, my persona is as much about keeping people OUT as it is welcoming people in. 🙂
Trying to tweet shout outs for this article but too many great one liners to quote. I can’t choose! Maybe I’ll tweet them all. You’re a rock star.
Aw, thank you so much Sherry. What a nice thing to say. Thank you for sharing it so enthusiastically!
I’m so happy to read that there are others out there who are not simply careless oversharers but people who have made a considered decision. I have done this myself as part of living the philosophy I teach and it has been an uphill battle sometimes trying to explain to people that I’m not just a loose cannon. I’ve extended this into a private online group that is dedicated to sharing our most human and imperfect moments in the hopes that it will be an incubator for a more open and authentic life offline. But still, sometimes being branded as simply a thoughtless loudmouth can be demoralizing. Thank you so much for writing this. I’m bookmarking it so that I can come back and recharge whenever the naysayers get to be too much.
Sometimes I just want to sit alone in a forest and scream. Scream out all the things I was really feeling inside. My social media profile started to feel like astroturf and real life was so much messier.
Yes, I sometimes argue with my wife.
Yes, I sometimes yell at my kids.
Yes, sometimes I’m a hypocrite.
I am human.