Sunday, September 7, 2008

Social media is changing my identity

I try to keep info here pretty vague as I don't want people to 'discover' me, but I'll give up a little more information. I work in the social networking scene. Granted, I'm behind the scenes on things, until people figure out who I work for.

Part of my job this summer included traveling around to different cities and hosting events. It was a blast and I really enjoyed it. I wish I had had more of an opportunity to meet people. Wait...I mean really MEET people. Not the 'elevator pitch' of who people are (which is almost always answered with what they do, not who they are), but who they REALLY are. *sorry for all the caps, trying to emphasize here...*

OK, I'm already babbling, so here is my point...I'm on twitter and facebook and myspace (though I never use it). However, lately, I'm really having to censor what I say or put out there due to the people who are following me. People associate me with the company I work for at all times, so I feel like I have to be careful in that aspect too. Even if something is coming from me, personally...people see me as a representative of my company and tie it back to them. You'd think I'd know how to handle this by now as I was in the same positions in high school with being captain of pom team, college with being VP of my sorority, etc.

I'm not a public person. I'm actually pretty private and let very few people know the 'real' me. Lately, though, I feel like I'm having to be more social and act like I want to get to know people, when in all honesty, I'm happy with those who are in my current circle and don't really want to expand it. Don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't like meeting new people, it's just becoming very overwhelming when people assume I want to hang out all the time and send me invites and call, etc. to do things.

Lately I've felt like I've been living in a world with a censor button. Things I would normally tweet, I don't, because I know who's reading. Even on this blog, I've been very hesitant to get back into it because I wonder if N (the old partner) may be reading it. Which, when I think about it, is pretty silly because he wants nothing to do with me.

I've debated starting a Facebook and a Twitter that's personal, to separate out from the business stuff, but don't want to maintain two accounts. Actually, that would be four. Wow-- Trying to find a good balance between my personal life and work life, which is becoming more public. Hopefully I can find a decent middle ground to land on.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hope you find the balance you need :)

Anonymous said...

I do believe that if you use an app like Twhirl, you can be logged into two accounts at once. In which case YOU could tweet as YOU as well as HER-the-cool-employee.

That said, I can totally relate. I went through something very similar not all to long ago with my website community. In fact, it's why I started blogging (twice now - and twice "discovered") instead of journaling on LJ. I wanted to be ME and not HER.