Clash of the Persona's

The inspiration for this was due to a someone I know both in real life and in the SM world.

This person is working on building their brand, trying to drum up business and such for her projects and ventures. There have been stumbles here and there.

I met said person in real life and was snubbed, which was to bad as I was trying to introduce the person to another fellow tweeter and friend from out of town. It brought up the question about how we treat people on Twitter vs. how we interact with them in real life.

On the one hand, you use SM to develop relationships with people for friendship, networking, to exchange knowledge, get information, etc. You give as much as you take, or at least that's how I see it.

Shouldn't that be the case in real life? Should your online relationship end there...online.

After all, the next logical step would be meeting someone in real life, that you have had wonderful exchange with online, and continue the dialogue.

But let's say that because of shyness, or worse because you snub that person, you ruin that personal moment. Your golden opportunity is ruined or tainted because you are to busy with your "real" friends who, whether wrong or right, you perceive to have more value than your online contact.

Again, not saying this is wrong or right, or that you should dump your long time friends for someone you only know online. But then again, couldn't you spare 10 minutes just shoring up that relationship in real life, make it a goal to meet again in person at a better place in time?

How does ignoring or snubbing your online contact affect how they perceive you? They follow you on twitter because you caught their attention. Now in real life you don't care?

@adamsconsulting puts it nicely in her blog http://www.bitrebels.com/geek/you%E2%80%99re-busted-presenting-the-real-you-on-twitter/

"When it’s all said and done, since it is not practical to change our avatar everyday to change with our look and our mood, I suppose we will all just have two different persona's. Maybe that is where the world is headed with social media. We will always present ourselves to the world in two different ways, one online persona and one offline persona."

But, while we will may two persona's, when it comes to the meat of it, "the handshake opportunity", do we blow it? Yes our real life persona comes across differently, but the core of who we are should be the same as our online core. If it isn't then you're just lying.

When that happens you may find your persona's clashing.