My husband, who spends too much time on Facebook, made a comment how my niece “likes driving” and how she’s always going on trips. He’s been talking about her car for weeks because she posted a couple of photos of the car.
And it occurred to me how much influence content has on our perception.
So it doesn’t matter what other interests she has or if she took just one trip and posted videos of that. In his head, she loves her car and enjoys going on trips in it. She “always” goes on trips. That’s the opinion he formed of her.
Having no other information, his mind filled in the blanks with more of what he saw.
And it made me wonder, is this a strategy that we should be using? (I have social media on my mind a lot lately because apparently I haven’t been doing it right for years)
Being picky about what we post, we can manipulate what conclusions people come to. It doesn’t take much. Just one car photo with no other context can suddenly make you look like a car enthusiast.
On the other side of this coin, we also have to be careful about unintentionally steering our audience in the wrong direction. If we don’t want to be remembered as the car loving lady, maybe ease on the car content.
This is just how everyone (or almost everyone) has been using social media since day 1 - socials offer a curated view of someone’s life, which is important to remember. Especially with aspirational content - it’s been a pretty big cause of concern for particularly younger people who are being severely impacted by not understanding that nothing online is real. Thankfully a lot of creators are showing a less-curated view these days!
I agree, it is so easy to manipulate people! Shockingly so. But to my mind, that’s on them, not on me. We can’t baby other people to make sure they use their critical thinking skills and don’t jump to the wrong conclusions about things. If you love your new car, you post those pix sister! ( ˆ◡ˆ)۶ ٩(˘◡˘ )
You know, that’s how I’ve always treated social media, to share what’s going on.
And of course, I’d be picky about what I vent online. Words are forever. But I’ve always wanted to be real.
But now that I’m considering doing the social media game on TikTok for my book, I’m thinking about how I need to be less myself and more this very deliberate algorithm slave. I hate everything about this idea but being idealistic won’t sell me any books.
I haven’t started yet, one because of the time, but two also because I haven’t figured out my angle, what my schtick should be.
Omg I know what you mean! We need to think up personas for the internet just to sell books, but actually I think that could turn out to be a blessing if you got famous and successful later. You don’t want your fans to know that much about you. People these days are crazy! They could show up on your doorstep or contact you through email with knowledge about your likes and dislikes, etc. Better to keep your truest self as secret as possible so you know when someone’s a phony. I need to figure out an angle too, based on my books somehow so I’ll have credibility, yet mystery. Elena Ferrante’s got the right idea, except she’s not on social media at all as far as I know. Must be nice to get your books totally promoted by your publishing house without having to do a damn thing yourself. She’s so lucky! ヽ(^。^)丿
