Attempt at Authenticity

Authenticity is a concept I struggle with on a daily basis. It seems, in many aspects of life, authenticity actually ends up being counterproductive. Had I pretended to care about auditing, rather than changing the world, I could have been banking on an audit internship right now. Granted, I would also be dead inside, but I would be banking.

A more challenging example would be twitter. Or even this blog. I could post millions of things with millions of hashtags and talk about how I’m a social media guru or something. I could retweet things 5 times a tay (to hit optimal twitter traffic levels), and yes, I’d probably have more followers. I could rationalize this by saying that I would allow more people to hear my message, which is cool. But what about that person that reads the same post 5 times (happens to me all the damn time). I unfollow those people as soon as they start to annoy me. If they have a good message, I’ll let it slide. But for the most part, their motives seem tainted and they bother me. But it’s a nice feeling to get a hell of a lot of followers/clicks/retweets/@s/blog views, etc.

So where do you draw the line? At what point are you willing to sacrifice your authenticity in order to achieve results? I’ve done pretty well for myself by sticking to my guns, but it’s been a tough road. I have maybe 70% of the world eating out of the palm of my hand, but the other 30% presents some significant obstacles. It’s those 30% that read social media blogs and figure out exactly what the guru of the hour feels is “the key to social media success” or “the proven method to get 100000 followers in 30 minutes.”  My favorite is when I see twitter novices using methods that are taken directly from the first search result for “twitter tips for beginners”. When the “sassy sexy waitress from cali” retweets a post about London’s banking debacle or some random guy asks obligatory questions to all 34 of his followers in a desperate attempt to get some @random_guy visibility within the twitter universe.

Yeah it’s cool to have followers, but is that why you do it? So you can say that last month you had 29 followers, but now you have 134? Is that what social media is all about?

I stumbled accross Vanessa Tan‘s blog post entitled “Twitter users: Be genuine”. I absolutely agree with everything she’s saying.

The take-home point is to be genuine both ways: as a Twitter user (in posting updates) and as a follower. It saves everyone a lot of trouble in the long run because you’ll get updates from people you’re really interested in, and you’ll have conversations with other people with common interests. Less is more.

As with all other forms of social media: Once a fad matures, one’s success comes from staying genuine (and interesting).

I like it. But is the feeling of satisfaction that we didn’t succumb to those pathetic tendencies of most “social media enthusiasts” enough? Sometimes, yes. Other times, it’s just terribly frustrating. I do enjoy hearing others’ thoughts on things like this. Am I wrong? How do you rationalize your social media methodology? Prove me wrong.

If anyone takes note of the trickery involved with this post, I will become your biggest fan (or biggest follower or whatever, depending on your level of authenticity).