In today's online obsession, it's easy to forget that you also have an offline perspective. When our two aesthetics, our online and offline, don't match, guess what; we are unable to create the influence, have the power and the relationships, and create the conversions we're truly looking for.
How do you make you're online aesthetic and your offline aesthetic match? If you're being real online, it shouldn't be that difficult. Yet, more and more, we find it challenging as we feel the pressure to make sure our Instagram pages are oh so perfect and filter every photo we do. Most importantly, not sharing the holisticness of our lives can be a challenge when people see us in the real world. We've all been there where someone showed you a beautiful photograph of themselves, and you think it was taken 10 or plus years ago. But they said they just got it done last week. Because it's been so heavily Photoshopped, it doesn't even look like the person standing before you.
What is a brand to do? When trying to create social proof, here are a few things to consider.
1.Make sure to be you. Yes, Photoshop's great, and filters are great, but when you filter out everything and change everything about yourselves, of course, people are going to be disappointed when they see you in person.
Make sure that your photos, your videos, truly are you. They need to be updated; they need to not be heavily Photoshopped or heavily filtered, and they need to be authentic to you. There's no point in having you have the most beautiful photo of yourself in a rainbow shirt if you would never wear that rainbow shirt in person. Stick with what you love. You're just always upleveling yourself. 2. Who are you? Are you a yoga pants-wearing person? Are you the flip-flop-jeans kind of personality? If you're not, then don't wear those items. If you are, then don't wear anything but those items.
The thing is that when we look at the offline world, a.k.a. the reality, it's hard for us to consistently lie in that world and pretend that we dress better, speak better, and act better than what we do. When we put on those personas on social media of wearing three-piece Italian suits or owning a beautiful luxury car, and ours is a Honda.
We end up disappointing not just the audience, but we end up disappointing ourselves and our subconscious minds as well. Therefore, we don't show up the way we're supposed to. Make sure that how you show up online is truly who you are in the real world. No one wants the three-piece Italian-suit-wearing person if you're a flip-flops and jeans guy. Trust me, they'll love the flip-flop and jeans kind of guy no matter what. 3. It's all about consistency. Just like in life, you show up in different ways in different situations. The same holds with your social media. We must intentionally show up on our social media in different ways. Be it showing up slightly differently on the platforms or showing the holisticness of our lives.
We didn't minimize confusion about who we are in the real world. That way, if someone sees you traveling and you don't look your best, or sees you at the grocery store, and you're trying to run away, or someone sees you across the room at a cocktail hour, it all makes sense.
In the real world of life, people have contacts. They understand that when you're at the gym, you're in a gym mood, wearing gym clothes, but that that person who is at the gym is not the same person who is the mom at the PTA meeting or the husband at the networking event or the person on vacation. They understand that you are showing up differently, dressing and acting and speaking differently based on the situation, but yet, it is still all you.
Regarding social media, we must portray that holisticness of who we are. So that way, the people understand not just the depth of who we are as a personality but, more importantly, what it is like to truly have a relationship with us and, of course, our brands.
Because, in the end, exactly what social media is about. It's supposed to be the real world online, yet we have made it into something that is anything but real. Make sure to create social proof for yourself and your business to create influence and create relationships that convert to something you desire. You must know how you show up the aesthetic of your life online and offline. When those two matches, it's amazing the synergy and the amazing things that are to come.