I was dicking around on Twitter the other night (searching for extremely highbrow Love Island chat in case you were wondering), and inevitably got lost down a rabbit hole on random accounts, many of whom were, or at least appeared to be, the accounts of people, mostly women, interesting women with plenty to say. And when I say ‘interesting’ I don’t necessarily mean people with a gazillion followers (although there were a fair few of these too among the online noise), but people who, I dunno, ‘do’ interesting things (creatives, authors, activists, writers, heck, just witty social media things).

What they all had in common was a certain confidence, at least in their online personas.

They were confident in their opinions, their humour, their lunch (well, maybe)…

And I can’t be the only one who, despite being pretty outgoing, finds this confidence intimidating at times?

One such person was replying to a tweet from a popular blogger (who was looking for people with multiple careers for a quote), and it went something like this:

“I’m a multi-hyphenate blogger and policy advisor at the X stock exchange. I love that I know that I am smart in a creative sense and I have a way to express my care for people and life. I am challenged by my work, knowing about the financial markets and policies. I’m creating the most valuable version of myself for the world”

Gulp.

If that ain’t online confidence, I don’t know what is.

I think it’s amazing that someone feels this way and can present their best self to the world!

Okay, so I KNOW that such online confidence can be faked but when you don’t necessarily feel as confident as these otherworldly beings, how can you be heard online? Nowt a lot worse than tweeting something you think is wonderful, only for it to tumbleweed into the ether…. but equally, if it does, is it possible not to care?

To be honest, having been doing social media and blogging ‘properly’ (if there is such a thing) for the past 6 years or so in different guises, I’ve developed a fairly thick skin. An unanswered tweet doesn’t really make me sweat, or gaining less IG likes on a post doesn’t bother me, but I can see how it does for many people and I think if it does then your confidence can take a knock and it’s a vicious cycle of wanting to be heard, but not really putting yourself ‘out there’.

I guess this is a bit of a rambling post but I’m just interested to hear other people’s opinions of being confident online in a sea of white noise online, and also your tips for others?

Do you feel confident on social media or on your blog? Do you happily jump into online conversations with people you don’t know i.e. on Twitter/Instagram? Or are you a social media lurker? Do you think you’re actually more confident online or vice versa? For what it’s worth, I probably think I’m more confident in real life than online (despite being pretty chatty on my platforms!), and I’m not really sure why?

I’m always interested to hear views on this as I’ve recently helped a few small businesses/start ups get going on their social media platforms, and I always tell them that half the battle is having confidence to be themselves online.

What do you think? Is it easy to be heard online these days?

 

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