I am active in social media.

But I am not a brand.

About 50% of the people that check in on my blog all the time (a hardy group, familiar with the heart-cankles of disappointment, perpetually grasping for updates like squirrels diving for nuts in the first snow of the year) will know what that means.

(Sorry to everyone else. Bear with me. Go get a coffee.)

On one hand, it means I am all up in the blogging (SHUT UP! I AM UP IN THE BLOGGING, LOOK! I AM WRITING A POST RIGHT NOW AND IT’S OKAY THAT IT HAS BEEN A WHOLE MONTH) the Twitter, the Facebook, the Tumblr, the Flickr… the Everything Else (notice, I did not link to all my presences — presii? — at those sites/platforms. Don’t worry. I will. But keep reading for now.)

You may not have a clue what those things are — or care to have a clue — or you may ALSO be all up in those things. In fact, you may KNOW me from those things. You may, in fact, FEAR me from those things.

Because when I say I am all up in it, I AM ALL UP IN IT.

I am a talker. A sharer. An asker. A presser-for-information. A lover of the back-and-forth. A bubbling optimist. A stewing pessimist. A HERE’S WHAT I THINK, AND YOU? kind of girl. I get into it, and I get into it hard.

Which is what being active in social media in my daily personal life means to me.

In other words, it means being how I am.

What does it not mean?

It does not mean I have conversations that are carefully chosen/crafted/edited to give you an IDEA of who I am.

I am not giving you a “brand”… though however YOU perceive me creates a sort of brand, just as it would if you met me in person. Which means I have a zillion brands in the minds of the zillion people I’ve met, like a cow who has been bought and sold many times over.

(Although, just as with the cow and whoever brands that cow, YOU’RE branding me. I’m not doing it myself, just as a cow could not grasp a brand with their hooves. Hooves lack thumbs, which are important for gripping. And no one chooses to get stuff burned into their hindquarters anyway, unless, well… they do.)

(Witness the destruction of an analogy.)

I mean, I work in branding (NOT COWS) and marketing. If that was the goal, I could do it. I could brand myself as a pink friggin’ T-Rex if that’s what I wanted you to believe AND YOU WOULD LIKE IT. Not to mention that I am rather pink and I have unnaturally short arms SO IT’S NOT EVEN A STRETCH.

But that’s work. That’s clients. That’s what I do for YOU.

For me?

When you see Meg, or Meg Fowler, or MegFowler?

All you’re getting is me, Meg… or however much I am choosing to give of myself at that time, in whatever flavor I’m giving it out that day.

Just like if you met me on the street.

Or called me on the phone. Or sat next to me at work. Or snuggled with me on the couch.

I would have a conversation with you.

And probably — ALMOST DEFINITELY — we would not have a conversation about how we’re having a conversation or why we’re having a conversation or my goals in conversing with you, which is the kind of conversation that drives me nuts in social media. I get sucked into discussing it, too, but I REALLY DON’T WANT TO ANYMORE.

But back to our conversation. I’ll keep discussing it, just to be ironic.

I might be happy or I might be frustrated or I might be over-caffeinated or I might be tired or I might be confused or I might be laughing before I see you. I might be trying to work something out in my head, I might be tired of talking about something/anything, I might be full of stories. I might have just learned something I want to share. I might be feeling stupid and have NOTHING to share.

I might be full of questions, too. In fact, that’s pretty likely. You may or may not have answers. I may or may not be content with this.

But whether you get me in person or you get me online, YOU GET ME.

This is what I do in social media. This is who I am in social media.

Me.

Social media. Social media. Social media. There, I said it three more times just to be annoying but how I use it DID NOT CHANGE.

If you’re looking for the brand or the philosophy or the strategy or the premeditation or the experiment or the backstory or the history or the essence, HERE IT IS:

I like talking. I like it when you talk. I like it when we talk.

However we go about doing that. About whatever we want to talk about or not talk about at the time.

I discovered the internet a while back.

So I talk here now, too.

End of story.

Or the beginning, I guess.