from jiparker

Every day this week, I’ll be posting based upon a random Flickr image that inspires me. Here’s one now.

I love this Flickr photo. I recognize myself in that little girl, as I might have been 40 or so years ago. I hated girly-girl stuff, and when Mom would try to dress me up in fru-fru little dresses, like the one this little girl is obviously being forced to wear, I would make a similarly frustrated face. Red velveteen, ruffly dresses aren’t me, and it would be a disaster in the making if I attempted to pretend otherwise.

That same concept applies to establishing your presence on the web, especially if you are blogging, or presenting some sort of personal point of view on your site. Your business, at that point, will be highly reliant on your ability to be genuine. You absolutely MUST be yourself if you hope to succeed. Unless you are the world’s greatest actor, any false identity/personality you attempt to portray will eventually be discovered - usually sooner rather than later. And once you’ve been outed as a fake (of whatever sort), the backlash will be detrimental nearly every time. (I say “nearly” because some fake personas are designed to be uncovered and can sometimes end favorably, but that kind of “trick” can only work a few times before the novelty wears off.)

Even if you believe that you would do better if you pretended to have a different personality, you’d probably be wrong. If you are a grumpy sourpuss in real life, you’d better find a way to make that a winning formula online, because you’ll probably not be able to fake a happy, bubbly person for very long. Whatever your personal traits are, find a way to use that to your advantage.

If your wardrobe is filled with red velvet ruffled dresses, then by all means let that roll over into your online business. However, if your wardrobe leans more towards jeans and sneakers, you need to resist letting anyone convince you to put on that girly girl dress. Your awkwardness and frustration WILL shine through.

(from Smash Mouth. "AllStar" Astro Lounge. Interscope Records, 1999.)

Posted on February 26th, 2008 by DazzlinDonna
Filed under: Branding