What is the Difference Between Social and Personal?

What is the difference between social and personal seems to be one of the biggest questions newbies (and even some pros) are asking today. I still get that eye roll from audiences and prospects when they say “I don’t care what anyone else ate for breakfast and am not going to share what I had!” I hear you and want to make this easy and  clear,  once and for all.

You are right, it isn’t about what you ate for breakfast, UNLESS, you are going to share an incredible recipe for a delicious frittata, a scrumptious bread pudding, or a wholesome granola. What makes it social is the sharing and that means it has to have value and interest. A recipe for knock out oatmeal sprinkled with raisins, toasted almonds, brown sugar and more is social, just saying you had a bowl of oatmeal, is not.

On this same note, imagine you have lunch with someone fascinating. Could be a colleague, an expert in your field, a celebrity, an industry giant. That is interesting and we want to glean some take aways from that lunch. C’mon dish us the gold nuggets you got (or not.) But don’t just tell us who you had lunch with, that isn’t interesting or social. Give us something we can reply to and engage with.

Where you are eating can also hold the key to being social. Imagine you are dining at some new hot place to see and be seen. Share it and be sure to dish the details on what the ambiance is like, the decor, and of course, the who’s who that you are seeing. On the flip side it may be a little whole in the wall, but the food is out of this world, and you love the laid back atmosphere. Those are social details.

My point is simply that there is a fine line between personal and social and social is all about making it engaging and something that others can comment on easily. A tweet proclaiming you had bacon and eggs for breakfast kind of gets that eye roll and “oh puhleeze, why do I need to know that.” But a tweet or FB update giving the skinny on how you had lunch at that hot new sushi house with the marketing legend Seth Godin, is way more interesting and we’ll want to know what gold nuggets Godin imparted.

Talk to me! Tell me how you use social media and what types of content you both like to share as well as to read.

Have you had a TMI moment on the networks? C’mon you can tell me. Now you know!