I miss the good ol’ days of social media. Yes, it was made up of mostly food pics and Farmville requests, but it was a new frontier—void of spam, unsolicited DMs, and fake profiles we so often see today.
Facebook had friends, Twitter had conversations, and LinkedIn had networking. It was the golden age of social media.
I don’t know exactly when it changed, but I know there was a defining moment for me when social media suddenly became inauthentic and artificial. It was actually during a TV show, when I realized social media would never be the same. My wife and I were watching an episode of our favorite show, “This Is Us.” It was one of those intense, emotional moments where my lip was starting to tremble, and Jess had the tissues at the ready. Right when we were about to find out exactly how Randal came to be adopted, a message jumped on the screen that said, “Share this moment.” Instead of allowing us to organically decide when we might spoil the dramatic moment to our Facebook friends, they tried to manufacture that moment.
And just like that, the Golden Age had turned into the Artificial Age of Social Media.
From then on, I’ve made it my mission to get us back to becoming more Authentically Social. No, I don’t mean food pics and vacation envy. I am talking about bringing our real, true selves to our social media. I’ll end this little rant with a great definition of Authenticity by Brene Brown:
How can you become more Authentically Social? What does this look like for your business? What concerns do you have about becoming more authentic on your social media?
I would love to hear from you! Weigh in on the discussion over on Instagram.