The importance of keeping it real online and off

Does your online persona perfectly reflect the real you?

People want to work with those they know and trust. That’s why it’s vital that the person you’re being online, is the real you – the person they’d meet if they ever met you in real life.

Many of us are soloist business owners in the online world. The person we are online is a direct reflection of our brand (or it should be!). The way you interact with your audience is the way you’d say greet a customer who walked into your shop.

Being the real you is authentic. If you create a false you, it will be hard to sustain and eventually, people will see the cracks in your persona and as a result, not trust you.

People will stalk you online before they’ve met you

With the business world being online, you can pretty much guarantee that people will know you through one network or another. They may not ‘officially’ know you, but they may have seen your name mentioned and gone stalking.

With everything online, your digital footprint is larger than you may realise.

You may be a constant poster on certain forums, so people know your name and look at your profiles. You may occasionally comment and that’s enough for people to check you out. You may belong to networks where other members have stalked you. And all of this happens without you realising most of the time.

So sometimes if you go to a real-life event, people around you may already feel like they know you and will be judging if you’re the same as you are online.

The trick to authenticity is simply being yourself!

‘Be yourself; everyone else is already taken’ – Oscar Wilde.

Don’t be scared to open up and show the real you. If people don’t like it – they aren’t your ideal audience in the first place. It’s the way you ‘find your tribe’, the people who love you.

At the end of the day, wouldn’t you want to work with people who you relate to and who love who you are? Of course you do! You’ll find it easier to trust those you’re working with in an online world as you’ll feel like you’re working with someone you know.

Share stories (yes, personal ones are fine – try to keep them positive but also share your bad days if you think your audience will relate), share photos of your day, share your knowledge freely (but not your IP) and be present.

A quick story of the online meeting offline

I met a group of fellow business owners for lunch the other day. We’d all met through a network and had known each other for a few years. Although we initially met online, we’ve had a few real-life catch ups.

As we were talking, we realised that each of us use each other’s businesses – for the network, social media management, reception services and copywriting.

And if we hadn’t met each other offline and connected so well, we perhaps would have outsourced these parts of our business to other people. But we are all authentic and love each other and what we do. So it works. We trust each other.

Are you keeping it real online and offline?

Are you being yourself online? It all starts with what you’re posting and how you’re responding to your audience. If you’re struggling to keep it real, perhaps you’d benefit from having a chat about your social media, your brand and your goals and see how you can tie it all together. Call me!