In a recent post, I wrote that two of the most essential aspects of social media for me, are closely related: human beings or people on one hand and identity on the other. They might even be the same.
The post was about the human aspect, this one is about identity!
The homepage at mindjumpers.com, shows a huge monkey with a board in his hands. On the board, something is written.
Why a monkey? It’s not that important for this post, it depicts where we think social media are on ‘their’ evolution scale right now. What’s important for this post, is the writing on the board. It says: “Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating Yourself!”.
Words of the wise, actually don’t know who came up with it, we stumbled upon it somewhere.
The essence in the sentence is very important for companies, using social media to understand and acknowledge.
We use social media to create our selves, and probably for some along the road, also find our selves.
We create or empower our identity by using new technologies
I will illustrate what I mean with a very personal example:
If you met me out in the real world, let’s say at a party three years ago, this could be what you learned about me: “Hi, my name is Jonas Nielsen (yes not Jonas Klit Nielsen, I will get back to this). I work in media and marketing, for large corporations in Denmark”.
If we got really personal, I would probably have told you that I had a girlfriend, no kids, and that I enjoyed running.
Standing at a turnpike in my life, I wanted to follow my dreams, my dream of building my own company, my dream of getting involved in other companies, my dream of writing and sharing my thoughts with others.
See, something that I would not have told you at that party three years ago about, was all the dreams I had. For instance, that I read like a million books, and had a dream of writing myself.
Then suddenly all these new possibilities of, connecting, sharing, writing, creating came along with social media.
Flash forward to the present.
Hi, my name is Jonas Klit Nielsen. I would lie if I said it were all intentional, but when I jumped to follow my dreams, and started to tap into the power of social media, I realized that, for instance, my name Jonas Nielsen, just did not work – to many of those! So I took my moms middle name, not officially, only in creating my digital identity. Google Jonas Klit Nielsen, and you will meet a guy that is creating himself.
You will meet a guy, who is the co-founder of his own company, and getting involved in others, a guy, who is writing on several blogs, a guy, who is not an expert but who gets asked advice about social media, the technologies surrounding it, communication and marketing.
Become friends with me on Facebook, and you will meet a guy, who is talking about his passions, follow me on Twitter, and it’s a guy dedicated to his company and work, Linkedin, Social Marketing Forum and the list goes on.
A fun thing that has happened along the road of creating my digital identity, is what happens to my offline identity.
One thing is that I have started receiving my letters to Jonas Klit Nilsen, also important letters from the bank, and I have to point out that I have not officially changed my name, so it causes confusion sometimes ;).
Another and much more important thing is that people, some, I don’t even know, are asking me for meetings, wanting to get my input and feedback on their entrepreneurial possibilities or business idea. Remember that this had been my dream for so many years. Chasing it in an offline corporate world would have been almost impossible.
Digital identity and businesses
My point is, that of course I am not the only one creating myself, millions of people are doing this around the world, following the dreams they have and creating their own identity, and this is very, in my mind, VERY important for companies wanting to succeed with using social media.
Why and how? That is of course the big question and in my next post I will give you my opinion.
But for now, I would like it very much, if you would leave a comment and share your thoughts on why and how with me!
Jonas Klit Nielsen is co-founder and Managing Partner of Mindjumpers, a Copenhagen based social media agency. Jonas works with various companies developing strategies for implementing and creating value through the use of social media. As a blogger it’s his aim to share the strategic insights and thoughts, generated through his agency’s work. You can connect with Jonas on Twitter here.
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