(Note to readers: I may be the only blogger not writing about Google+ this week — just letting you know!)

All is not as it seems on Social Media. And I say that not to scare you, but to open your eyes to what is real.

Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Google+ (ok, there I mentioned it anyway!), if you are following fellow solo entrepreneurs, take what you read with a grain of salt. Because it’s all marketing — positive, upbeat, inspirational, hopeful. Everyone crowing about their successes, what a great day they had, their lovely weekend or their recent pedicure.

Don’t get me wrong — that’s not bad. Most people who are active in social media for business are there to make connections (aka marketing), and you don’t do that by bemoaning how bad last month was. But it’s important for you to realize it’s not always the whole picture.

Because there are folks out there, people who are well-known, who can’t pay their mortgages, are in bankruptcy, take in 6- or 7-figures but pay out more than their income in expenses, sign up for $100K diamond programs and then don’t pay their VAs, and on and on.

I’m not sharing this to start rumors, or to scare you. I just want you to realize that despite the happy face that most people put on when they interact on social media, they are people just like you and me. They have good days and bad days, good months and bad months, good years and bad years. They have personal problems, marital issues, money woes, you name it. They just don’t talk about it on social media!

And so it’s easy to look at all that “oh isn’t it a great day” commentary and then look at your own business and feel like you’ll never achieve that kind of success. And I don’t want that!

I want you to see possibilities, to take the inspirational messages and let them lift you up. And if that means you need to sometimes look at those avatars and imagine them in their underwear, wondering where their next paycheck is coming from, do that! Because they’ve all been there — they’ve been in your shoes, they may still be in those shoes! Because, in Social Media Land, all is not always as it seems.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 12th, 2011 at 10:30 am and is filed under Internet Marketing, Mindset and Personal Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.