When I first heard people talking about pushing for a consistent message and tone in social media, I didn’t like it. I felt that it pulled against authenticity, but now I’ve seen some people basically shooting themselves in the foot by not doing so.
In particular I know of a musician that’s on the brink of breaking out, and the internet could be a large part of that. Yet, they completely fail at having anything resembling a consistent message. They put up some really bad photos of themselves on Facebook, and they are really inconsistent with their ‘image’.Some of them are uber-photoshopped modeling types that don’t look all that much like them, and others are ones that look like they just crawled out of bed and shot them with their cameraphone.Plus, I’m pretty sure she’s stoned in half her photos and it shows. The artist would appeal to a pop/rock audience that is very image/fantasy based, and I don’t think that this inconsistent image is what will ‘bring it home’ to break them out to a nationwide audience. Half of their updates on Facebook or Twitter are angst filled, veiled messages, that don’t connect at all to their friends let alone their fans. Maybe 1-2 people ‘get it’, but maybe that would be better served through a direct SMS to that person. Updates are infrequent, and emails often aren’t returned.
As a flip side, take my friend Julia Roy. Her blog is well updated and upbeat. Her tweets on Twitter are consistently fun, upbeat, friendly and energetic. She isn’t afraid of stating that she doesn’t like something, or is having a bad day. I never once read her stuff and think, “That isn’t her”, so there isn’t any problem I see with authenticity. Every photo she puts up on Flickr or Facebook looks great. Never do I think, “Wow, she looks drunk there”, but she has a good time when she goes out (just never to the point of embarassment). She does a really kickass job at being herself, professionally rocking, and yet stays incredibly consistent.
Consistency isn’t fake. It’s putting forward a side of you that’s most beneficial to those consuming your image. If you are in entertainment or PR of some variety, then you are creating something for consumption. Make it something that people care to consume.
I think the main problem with consistency with a lot of people who use social media (myself included) is largely down to attention span. Many people get really enthused about doing something, but they can’t keep up that enthusiasm for long (days, weeks etc).
It becomes ‘less fun – more work’, as they suddenly realise just how much they really have to put into their social media, having given no forethought to it before hand. Once they have committed themselves, they loose interest once they realise they have to do more than just do a periodic update with a pretty picture.
Eventually the “CBA” mindset settles in, reducing blogs, updates and social media outlets to just tired and unused metaphor’s for their owners.
If people go into it with both eye’s open, knowing full well what’s expected of them and can still pull it off, fair play to them.
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