The platform doesn't get a vote
(on who you are)
There’s something I keep seeing on social media that leaves me staring into the void every time I come across it.
In this absurd race we’ve imposed ourselves to be active on every possible platform, many personal brands end up being swallowed.
Well, more like their personalities.
Some sound like 3 or 4 completely different people.
On LinkedIn like a press release. Or this very candid person but put together.
On Instagram it’s all caption-formulas with reels that make no sense (but hey! they don’t make the rules).
You can’t imagine how many people are still on Twitter unleashing themselves because the majority of their audience elsewhere don’t know they have a profile there.
Which of the 3 is the person’s actual voice? The 3 of them? None?
Voice vs tone - the eternal misunderstanding
Your voice is who you are.
It’s the way you see the world and how you communicate it. This stays consistent.
Your tone is how you express yourself…. in different contexts.
Brands have guidelines for this.
It’s not the same writing an error message, a customer service email, or a presentation.
They should all be loyal to the voice but the tone adapts according to the situation.
(Some brands have guidelines but never use them. That’s for another issue).
What happens with people? Don’t we have guidelines too?
Of course we do.
There are certain words you always use, the way you express surprise, or love.
When you swear you tend to go for some words rather than others.
You have expressions, a cadence in the way you speak, a particular sense of humour.
You might be sharp but kind or you might have a tendency of spending longer to make a point.
We just haven’t put them on paper because we don’t have to think about them.
Only when we’re are in certain social situations we decide to filter ourselves.
To hide, to tame, to bend.
And we took that same behavior to social media (after all the online world mimics and amplifies how the offline world works).
The context I was talking about earlier with brands?
We decide the platform is the context.
We adapt thinking we’re being strategic. “This is what works here”.
We’re fooling ourselves. This is confusing. Frankenstein level confusing.
The platform is just the medium.
I’ll say it one more time: The platform is just the medium.
You wouldn’t change your voice if you switched from Google Docs to Notion.
So why do we do it on social media?
"But my audience is different on each platform”
[hot take] No, they’re not.
Your audience might discover you on different platforms.
But the person who follows you on LinkedIn and subscribes to your newsletter has way more in common than you think (a little secret: that’s what makes them YOUR audience).
Don’t say “but on LinkedIn I have founders and on Threads they’re moms in their 40s”. As those two are exclusive (again, they’re not). Don’t mistake a persona characteristic for your cue to shapeshift.
When LinkedIn you sounds nothing like Instagram you, they notice.
They don’t think “wow, great platform adaptation”.
The most recognizable people online sound like themselves everywhere. No shapeshifting required.
What actually changes by platform:
Format (the lines are getting really blurred these days).
Technical constraints: character limits, image specs, video length.
Platform features.
You see where I’m going with this?
The real question
Are you adapting to the platform?
Because right now, many personal brands are letting the platform decide who they are. And the platform doesn’t get a vote.
It should never have had a vote.
And you’re not Arya Stark1
You’re a person with a voice.
Use that.
Before you go
If you’ve been a usual reader of The Last Scroll you might have recognised myself in these lines but also noticed a more inquisitive (always loved that word) tone.
Well, I wrote this email some time ago… to myself.
When I started noticing that in certain posts I was “showing my hand” as a friend always says to me, in others my voice appeared like an extra in a movie, and in others it was me with a filter applied on top.
Showing up on social media is more complex than I anticipated when I started sharing content.
Some people are themselves from the beginning and never go through this process. I wasn’t one of those people.
But there hasn’t been a single week in the last 3 years where I haven’t had some version of this conversation:
“don’t even know how to show up”
“on this platform I prefer not to be because I wouldn’t know how to behave”
“you nuts? I can’t say that here”
So, apparently not just me. That’s why this draft is now in your inbox.
Until the next scroll,
V
For those of you not familiar with Game of Thrones, Arya Stark is a character who goes through special training where she’s able to switch her face to impersonate other people.
