If there’s one piece of social that is my favorite part, it’s the permission to be 100% authentically real. Social has always been about true conversation between people. It’s not meant to be shouting about your products and services at an audience.
Remember you are building a community here on social, no matter which platform you’re using. So don’t think of people on your follower list as followers, think of them as part of your community. And make your conversations with them as real as you do when you call your best friend.
This incorporates all that we’ve discussed before:
- Your brand voice
- Your persona
- Your personality
- Determining which pieces of your voice go in your brand and which go in your personal.
All of this matters. Take a look at what my messy desk looks like in the cover photo of this post. I mean.. it doesn’t get more real than that. You think if I had a photo session for my website I’d show off this space? Of course not! But social is authentic and not contrived and not, well, necessarily even clean. Calm down, I’ll straighten it up before the week gets going.
We’ve always given specific guidance on this topic to our clients, whether they outsource their social to us or they use our consultation services:
Be real. It’s ok if your social photos aren’t perfect and high-resolution and the BEST photos you’ve ever taken. Those photos need to be housed on your website, for sure. But from a social standpoint, it’s ok if it’s not perfect and over-edited. In fact, it’s better. With all the talk about the issues with social, do you really want to look at some brand’s perfection all day long? Of course not.
So show the behind the scenes, show the bloopers, show your team having fun. Don’t try to curate your social so much that it just turns into a two-dimensional brochure. Make sure to make it YOU.
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