Friday, January 15, 2010

A Ramble or Two

I'm having an off day/week. I'm not so self-important that I can't admit that. Some people seem to think that whatever they post online has to be a ridiculous representation about how life is. Some days, life sucks. And that's ok. I'm big into my online persona, I know how to manage it and how to be transparent and genuine. I attend a lot of webinars, seminars and conferences. I read industry books, blogs and websites, and I follow a lot of industry professionals on Twitter. I do all of this to make sure I understand the social media standards in how putting yourself out there should be handled in a professional way.

Everything I want people to see is public. Everything I want hidden from the public is hidden. An obvious statement, but a lot of people don't seem to comprehend that. Even though my Facebook personal page is private, I'm still very careful about what I post there and I'm very particular about my privacy settings. Having 400 "friends" means there are a lot of people on there who are in my industry or are people I don't need seeing my personal silliness.

I am much more conscious about my public persona than I ever have been. I'm honest and open about my thoughts and my life in my blog because I truly believe in being genuine and transparent. Some of the main issues I see in my general blog reading out there is that people seem to put on a show. Every once in a while I come across a blog where the author is trying to make you think he/she is a certain way. They're being transparent, and not in a good way. This type of transparency is the "I see right through you, and now I don't trust anything that comes out of your mouth"-transparency. Being transparent in the social media space, if you take it seriously, is showing your true colors, good and bad, to your readers.

I do take this very seriously. Honest to a fault sometimes, I'm telling you stories here - boring for the most part, I know - but I hope sometimes they're entertaining.  I don't contradict myself, and if I do, it's because I've changed my mind, and I will call it out. What I tell you in this blog is true, authentic and real. I'm not making myself sound better than I am, I'm not making my life sound better than it is, and I'm not talking down to you, my readers, all seven of you, in any way, shape or form. There are some days I forget this thing is online, that I have just shared something with the world, but in the end, I'd rather have you know ME, not some image of me that I want you to believe. If you write a life blog for yourself, as a journal, as a way to record your life, then you'd never embellish it, exaggerate things or happy-wash things just to make your readers think a certain way.

2 comments:

jessicapecota.com said...

I. Love. This. M.

Wine Chick said...

Thank you, J. There are so many people that don't understand that a life blog is a story, one that gives your readers a reason to come back. I'm happy you still read my blog! I know I can be a tad boring, but I'd rather be boring and silly yet authentic than hypocritical or arrogant. I think that would just turn everyone away.