Month: January 2014

When Actual Self ≠ Digital Self: Vetting People Online

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In our Audience Insight class during my Master’s program, we learned about the theory of self-discrepancy and how the differences between our actual selves (how we really are), our ideal selves (how we want to be perceived) and our ought selves (how we think others want us to be) apply to consumer behavior.  For instance, we often make purchases based on our ideal or ought selves rather than our actual selves.  This theory got me thinking about how we present ourselves online.  Check out this infographic based on an Intel study.  It’s clear that many people lie on social profiles for the purpose of improving how they appear to others.

Is the Social Media You the Real You?

TechDigest

As you post on social sites and/or on your blog, do you present yourself as you actually are?  Or do you present yourself as the person you’d like to be? Or the person you think people want you to be?  Or do you fall somewhere in between?
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Hello There, Social Platforms!

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Do you remember how you were first introduced to social networking?

I do.

myspace-logoI joined MySpace when it first became popular (I think it was 2004).  I loved that I could reconnect with friends from high school and college, no matter where they were living.  Plus you could change the colors and backgrounds and add graphics and music to your profile. (By the way, have you seen it lately? WOW! It looks different.)

FB-f-Logo__blue_100When I first heard about Facebook in 2005 from some long-time friends who were still in college, I was too old and too far out of college to join, so I had to patiently wait until Facebook was opened up to the masses.  Even though I did join Facebook about a year after it finally opened to us older/non-collegiate folk, I remained loyal to my trusty MySpace because it was familiar and had lots of options for customization that Facebook didn’t offer.  Finally in late 2007, I decided to bite the bullet and join Facebook. In all honesty, it took me quite a while to ditch MySpace and become a full-on Facebooker.

Twitter_logo_blueThen in mid 2008, I joined Twitter to see what all the fuss was about… and was immediately hooked.  For me, Facebook has always been all about connecting with people already know, but Twitter in entirely different.  I loved being able to engage with people I didn’t know without having the concern of allowing them in to my personal life.

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Emerging media. What the… WHAT?

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“So what exactly DO you do?”

With titles in my repertoire like “Interactive Communications Strategist” and “Social and Digital Brand Manager,” you can imagine I have heard this question a lot over the years.  It doesn’t always have an easy answer.  Arguably, these titles are a little ambiguous. I’ll give you that.  But here’s the kicker…  what I am doing at work today may be drastically different in 6 months time.

Why?

Because marketing in the emerging media landscape is constantly changing.

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