Personality: Online vs. Offline

In real life, I tell a lot of jokes. I make a lot of faces. I do weird voices. Sometimes, I screech and do my best impression of a velociraptor.

I rarely do this on my blog. I’m only a little better about showing my personality on Twitter.

And I’m not sure why this is.

A personality is a powerful thing. There are a lot of smart, funny, passionate people out there. But not all of them translate into a vibrant online persona. The problem is that not all of us are great writers, and getting your real-life personality across in text can be a challenge.

Enter podcasts and video blogs. Go check out Gary Vaynerchuk or DiggNation to see what I’m talking about.

And have you noticed? The rough edges are ok: fumbling over some words, going off on tangents, and mediocre production value are authentic. Like your personality.