photo credit: anna-rchy

As someone who is still feeling her way along in social media (and yes, I think I still don’t get Twitter or why anyone remotely cares to follow me), Drew McLellan tagged me to participate in a best practices discussion about SM. Specifically, the strongest best practice in my SM arsenal, er toolbox.

Okay, I’ll play.

Drew’s best practice is to “Lift Others Up” … share something, be generous with your time, encourage and support others in their efforts.  I couldn’t agree more. But I’ll take a slightly different tack and say:

The Copywriting Maven’s Best Practice: Lead with your authentic self.

In a world where more and more we conduct business via web, IM, Twitter and all manner digital, it’s hard to get a read on the person behind the persona. What we gain so easily in speed and efficiency, we just as easily lose in gut feel and visceral sensibility, our liberal use of emoticons and other stage directoria aside.

I realized this early. So rightly or wrongly since my first days online in the mid-1980s, I decided I was just going to be who I was, personally and professionally. No differences or disconnects between the online/offline me. No games, no surprises.

I’m not suggesting that you strip yourself bare - unless that’s the kind of thing you’re into. But I am suggesting that by being your most genuine self, whether it’s in SM interactions or face2face in that quaint, old-fashioned way, just makes the most possible sense. Easy, too.

Now to the tag … direct from my NetVibes Reader, here’s who I’d like to hear from!

• VanSEODesign
• JennSays
• Dina Eisenberg

Here’s how it works:

1. Blog it or add it to the comments here.
2. Link to Mitch Joel’s blog - this is the guy who started the whole thing
3. Tag it “social media marketing best practices project”
4. And then tag someone else with the meme.

And don’t forget to have fun!