Does Your Online Persona Match Your Real Life Persona?
Recently, I received an invitation to attend a three day conference. Before deciding to stay a few extra days I reached out to the other attendees. I wanted to see how many people I might already know and if there would be an opportunity to connect before or after the event.
To my delight I found that several of my favorite speakers would be there as well as a dozen or so of my online friends that I had never met in person. I was looking forward to meeting some of the people I had been engaging with for months via social media and was excited at the opportunity to take our online friendship to the in-person world.
As I made my way to the event, I found myself thinking, “Are they going to be someone I would want to meet and spend time with?” Sometimes the way people portray themselves online is not necessarily who they are in real life.
I wasn’t disappointed.
By the end of the night I had met some amazing business professionals. They were exactly who they portrayed themselves to be. It gave us an opportunity to build on what we had already learned about each other. We were able to move forward in a way that benefitted us both.
So besides the wealth of information I learned at the conference one of my biggest takeaways was how important it is to be the type of person you would want to meet and to be yourself.
Would you like to meet you at a networking event?
Shut the front door! There are more posts like this? Yes!
Photo courtesy of miggslives.
About Patty Farmer
