When making a first impression, they say you have about 7 seconds.
On the internet, it’s even less than that.
I don’t know about you, but my brain lumps people into categories pretty quickly when I’m browsing their content.
If they don’t stand apart, I’m not interested.
I’m going to use Twitter as an example.
Here are some people I quickly lump into categories of “the same”. No offense to anyone, just being honest.
- Teenage girls obsessed with Tumblr, celebrities, Pretty Little Liars (can’t even), crop tops, long hair, pictures of fruit and avocado’s sliced open. Kylie Jenner and Brandy Melville. OH and anything related to animals, baby animals, being tan and beaches. Summer and starbucks. Fall and Starbucks. Short shorts and bikinis.
- College kids.
The Boys: obsessed with ESPN and everything sports related. Throw in the occasional rapper lyrics and college groan. Insert vines and snapchats of them doing stupid stuff and laughing. Lots of cuss words. Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, FIFA, COD, XBOX, Halo and intramural claim to fames. Concerts they go to.
The girls: retweet accounts about how basic they are and the 30 Netflix shows they are watching. Back and forth with their BFF. Telling us what mood they are in. They are at the nail salon. They miss home. Depressing quotes about love. Food cravings. Insert TMI, crap we don’t care about ______. Obsessed with Beyonce and the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.
3. People/Businesses/Random Accounts that just retweet EVERYTHING. No personality. You don’t even know what they do or care to know. Just retweets and articles.
4. The creepy accounts. . . Who are you?
5. Business men and women who only tweet about their industry. Cue profile picture in a suit with cheesy laughing smile. Short hair and pearls. Glasses. Balding. The hotels they just checked into. Their favorite LinkedIn articles and conferences they are attending…You know who you are.
6. The spam accounts. No explanation needed.
7. The extreme time tweeters. They either tweet once every blue moon or tweet every second.
8. Then… there are the gems. Cue angels singing and clouds parting. It’s hard to really nail these types to a description. You just know when you find them. You never know what they are going to post but when they do you always read it. You want to know more about them and you stalk them religiously. They post stuff you haven’t seen, make you laugh and make you think. You wish you could meet them in real life because you know you would be friends.
Separate From The Sea of The Same.
It’s such a cliché, but I can’t emphasize it enough, differentiate yourself. Think about how you browse content and use it to be more strategic about how you present yourself on social media. Like the @TheSalesLion recommends, be objective.
