I Do All The Time
An Explanation of why losing followers might get you more business, or valuable contacts:
Here is the deal, everyone is not going to like you, even people who liked one thing you said or wrote and followed/liked you in social media. So don’t pussy foot around trying to make everyone happy. You will still lose followers and they may be the ones that most relate to the real you.
So I make a video series that is focused on chronicling life with my friends and family, it is the Spirocks TV you see on the upper right. Viewers mostly consist of people in my day to day life that make appearances in the videos… but occasionally I get comments and messages telling me I am inappropriate.
The reasons I make the videos are for fun, posterity, and to show my clients how far you can go sharing parts of your personal life with potential customers without bad things happening.
Now what if I made these and pre-scripted them? Or edited out funny shit? Or perhaps I simply wouldn’t say things that have sexual overtones, swears, may offend some group somewhere, or in general just wasn’t myself.
It would be two things:
- Lame
- A failure
Not exactly the result I am looking for now is it? Recently I posted a video from a family get together where all the 20-30 year olds sat together and joked around. Somehow we started talking about a comedy skit we wanted to make called ‘Happy Ending Hospice‘ and it was caught on camera. While editing I didn’t even flinch from using it because, it is funny, and was a real not-canned conversation that I wanted to be able to laugh at with my family.
I did realize that the sexual overtones would be too much for somebody out there. I don’t worry about those people, at all. In fact chance are that if I tried to do business or hang out with someone who couldn’t laugh at a sexual innuendo I would want to leave without saying goodbye and or slap them out of their stuppor.
One of my clients (see a recent video for him here) who I talk to about the benefit of being yourself and at the same time knowing the line not to cross saw the title and jokingly tweeted me: “I’m remembering this headline when my next 10 tweet ideas are rejected as inappropriate.” That got me thinking.
What is the difference between sharing the real you and sharing something inappropriate?
Like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said in his statement for the court’s obscenity case of Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964). He wrote that “hard-core pornography” was hard to define, but that “I know it when I see it.”
A good thing to consider if you you are worried you are possibly crossing the line is to ask yourself: Am I expressing myself in a way that is just revealing who I am, or am I expressing myself in a way that is condescending to other people?
Not Everyone Has the Same Style
If you are just expressing your style, go for it, because while I may not relate to the gentleman in the picture above, a lot of people will. That is how it works, you don’t get to be perfect and loved by everyone. Sorry not happening.
So if you have been tip toeing around, maybe it is time to break out, be yourself, and gain the traction with the people who could relate to you. Those are the people that you need to have identify with you, seek you out, follow your writing, and become your customers/partners.
Find that sweet spot, its easy because it is you.
You can find me on Twitter @spirocks