How To Develop Your Social Media Persona

Yesterday someone told me that they appreciate the tone with which I present my work on social media. They said it comes across as authentic and real. While I always aim to be authentic online, I would be lying if I didn’t tell you that I have developed a persona for my Instagram. Let me explain why I’ve developed this persona, how I chose it, and why it’s important. 

Authenticity is Overrated 

Seth Godin has riffed many times on how authenticity is overrated. He explains that airplane pilots and nurses and grocers don’t just get to show up to work whenever and however they feel. That’s unprofessional. But, for some reason, creators only like to show up when they feel “inspired” and they like to bring their feelings into their work. Godin makes the case that when creators only create when they feel like it, they’re being unprofessional.

I have adopted a version of this for myself with my blog sprints. It doesn’t matter if I feel like writing. It doesn’t matter if I have a great idea to write about. I’m going to find one, and present it to my audience anyway. 

This idea is explains why a social media persona is important. You can’t bring how you feel to your audience every day. you need to show up and bring them value despite how you feel, and a great way to do this is to have a persona to fall back on. Even when I’m feeling bummed or uninspired, I present this persona anyway, because people are counting on me. Pilots and grocers and nurses do this every day. It’s called being a professional. 

You’re Not a Celebrity 

The people with the most followers on social media are celebrities. A huge mistake people make is pulling social media best practices from celebrities, because they have the most followers. In fact, celebrities are exempt from the rules the rest of us have to follow because they’re famous. Mimicking celebrities is a horrible idea. 

Creators on social media don’t get to ignore DMs and comments because it makes them seem cool. That just makes us out of touch. We don’t get to post emotional instagram stories about the state of our political party. That just ostracizes half our audience. We don’t get to post selfies out of the blue. That doesn’t help anyone. 

Developing a social media persona, and a set of rules to follow within that, is a great way to consistently show up for your audience. Being dependable and consistent is most of the battle in connecting with an audience anyway. A social media persona helps you show up for your audience, in a counter-intuitive way. 

Present One Piece of the Pizza

A social media persona isn’t acting–it’s curating. I think of my personality and life as a pizza with many slices. My work is one slice. My friendships are another slice. My hobbies, my emotions, my family, my beliefs, are each their own slice. Developing a social media persona isn’t creating an inauthentic pizza–it’s simply only bringing one or two slices of who you are to the table. 

I always bring my work life to my social media persona. It’s basically an open book, and I try to be as honest as I can with what I learn through my work. I occasionally bring my friends, family, and hobbies to my social media persona, but only if I think my audience will find it helpful or compelling. I aim to never bring my emotions or beliefs to my social media persona in real time. If analyzing how I them after the fact is helpful to my audience, then I’ll do that. 

This protects me from the common pitfalls creators experience when oversharing. It also makes memory consistent and dependable for my audience, which again, is most the battle when growing an audience. 

If you’ve been following me on Instagram for a while, you’ll start notice a few things. I always post waist-up photos of myself in-feed around 12pm, because they perform the best. In the captions, I share the work I’ve recently been working on, or things I have coming up. I always start my Instagram stories by saying, “Hey everyone, great news!” Then I share about the project I’m working on. This is the persona I’ve developed, and even if I don’t feel like posting, I can always post this side of myself. 

Closing

I hope this has been helpful to you. If you’re thinking of developing or honing your social media persona, you should start by drawing a pizza, and writing aspects of who you are on each slice. Then decide which slices you’ll bring to the table, which slices you’ll protect, and then try it out for a while. 

Good luck out there!