I stumbled across a
social experiment which I had not intended to do! I was baffled by what I
noticed.
There are so many
articles out there teaching people how to maintain their social media, what to
do to engage their audience, how to gain followers, have people like your
pages, and gain subscribers.
They also talk about how
your profile picture is important for your marketing success. People look at
your bio and profile picture, make a quick judgment and decide if you’re worth
following.
But what about using our
real name in the social media? What if your name is not typical, common, white,
English, European name?
Have you ever thought that you might be judged
based on your name?
I have various twitter
and YouTube accounts based on my interests. The accidental social experiment
proved that although I am the same person behind the scene operating many
accounts, more people were accepting of me when I used a non-ethnic name
combined with a profile picture that represented western culture and
familiarity. In both cases, most of the content remained the same. In one
example, when I approached an individual indicating an interest in their
network, I was totally ignored. The same individual approached me at a much
later date when I had a much different name than my original ethnic name. The
person really does not know who I am. They do not know me personally. But they
judged me based on my name and decided whether they wanted to interact with me
or not. I must say, I really don’t care for that individual very much now.
We all judge, misjudge,
assess, and re-assess. I don’t follow someone who talks about fashion. The same
goes for me, not everyone wants to follow someone who is tweeting for human
rights and amnesty. My tweets are not fun, but rather of the sad, serious,
troublesome world we live in. It is reasonable and logical that people choose
to interact with others based on their mutual interests.
But then again, there
are those that interact with others based on their names.
Do you have the RIGHT name?! You have less than a minute to impress...
