Every brand and every social media account has a vibe, whether they’re conscious of it or not. Some people are actively cultivating that vibe and others are unclear about exactly what they’re trying to portray (let’s call that the ‘confused vibe’).

Below are a few groups you might want to try on for size, deciding which one or ones are a good fit for you.

There’s the ‘All About Women’ group

This group ranges from hard core feminists to feminism lite and women’s empowerment spaces. They cover a broad range of topics of interest to women including motherhood, menstruation and menopause, financial management, business development, embodiment, leadership, women’s bodies, body positivity etc.

The School of Visibility sits in this category as do a lot of our students. The ‘vibe’ is really one of raising the profile of women and women’s issues so doesn’t necessarily have a specific aesthetic but let’s take a look at a few examples:

• Women’s Agenda which has a news of the day kind of vibe to it,
• Fiona Pitt from The Intuitive PT is one of our Women Speaking Up students and has been working on speaking up against diet culture and patriarchal norms in fitness industry, with a focus on permimenopausal and menopausal women,
• Floli and Emma from the.sisofficial are gender based violence researchers and have a strong and impressive social media game,
• Roxanne Gay is a prominent American feminist who in recent years has really been stepping forward as a mentor to other writers and working to amplify their voices,
• My friend Amy Taylor-Kabaz is building a movement of mothers and is an activist for matrescence; a new way of thinking about the identity shift that happens to women when they become mothers, and
• Bayan Qutub is another of our Women Speaking Up students. Bayan is a diversity and equity consultant based in Saudi Arabia and working globally. (Like me, you may not be able to speak Arabic but you’ll find all the captions in both Arabic and English and I’m sure I’m not the only person in the world to think that the Arabic script is the most attractive in the world. The Thai obviously script comes in a close second).

There’s the ‘Let’s Change the World’ vibe

This one has all the social justice warriors, the NGOs, the activists.

The more academic, philosophical and social policy based ones draw on a ‘I’d like to use this platform to provoke intelligent and thoughtful conversations’ vibe (one of my personal favourites). Usually these are text heavy or include a lot of videos. They might be linked to a podcast or some other platform that houses longer form content.  They thrive on picking a specific topic and encouraging discussion. Here are two examples from Real Social Justice and so.informed:

Another branch of the ‘Let’s Change the World’ crew are the ecowarriors, the activists, the NGOs, and the people sharing information that they hope will inspire action. I call this the ‘This is Urgent People! Pay Attention’ vibe (I love these people). Here are a few examples of what this looks like from accounts:

• I Million Women which has built a community of women taking action on climate change,
• Black Lives Matter needs no introduction but can always benefit from more awareness raising,
• Christey and Jo at Just People’s are also students of Women Speaking Up and are working to eliminate global poverty (nb: their brand is less alarmist than some in this category and more community focused with a lovely ‘we can do this together’ sort of vibe), and
• Sherele Moody at the Red Heart Campaign which focuses on gender-based violence in Australia.

And finally in the ‘Let’s Change the World’ category you’ve got your people who are modelling the kind of behaviour they want to see in the world. Let’s call them the ‘Slow Down and Smell the Cow Manure’ crew (a label I have attributed with a great deal of affection).

You’ll see a lot of pictures of kids and families rambling in nature, you might catch a kombucha scoby on show, there’ll definitely be some freshly made bread floating around, as well as cows, goats, veggie gardens and all those good things. Plus you’ll find the minimialists, the home schooling crew as well as the Montessori or Steiner parents, the conscious capitalists and more. Here’s a couple of examples from The Slow Home Podcast and Dumbo Feather Magazine.

Which brings us to the ‘It’s all About The Vibe Baby’ Group

In this category we have your meditation accounts, your divine feminine accounts, your tree hugging vegetarian accounts (I say this as a proud, tree hugging vegetarian), your hippy accounts, your spirituality and yoga accounts. Nature features prominently, platitudes abound, people are normally smiling or meditating or doing some complicated yoga posture, pastels or bright happy colours are common, and the peace sign serves as a reliable go to in a selfie. Here are some examples from IG accounts Transcendental Meditation and peacelovebehippy.

There are the ‘I’ve Worked This Out, Now Let Me Teach You’ crew

You’ll see these people in every aspect of life from how to market yourself online, to how to organise your cupboards, to how to master Excel. Here are some of my favourites:

• Armen Adamjan from Creative Explained,
• Kat Norton from Miss Excel,
• Green Kitchen Stories (sharing amazing recipes, with a beautiful aesthetic, all by a gorgeous Scandinavian family – seriously, what’s not to love?) and
• Mahdi Woodard who shares his very astute reflections on internet marketing by combining a “I’ve Worked This Out, Let Me Teach You’ vibe with a ‘From the Hood’ vibe (again, what’s not to love about that?).

If you’re a coach with a system or easy to explain process to help people take tangible action in their business or lives, be sure to soak up some inspiration from this group of people.

And finally, there’s the ‘Friend Next Door’ vibe!

My friend Lisa Corduff does this really well, sharing little snippets from her family life, with the occasional recipe and other tidbits that are very relatable to women with kids, living in the burbs (I say that as one such individual myself). Then there’s the ultimate ‘Friend Next Door’ Jennifer Garner who needs no introduction. Plus, people like the Home Edit have managed to combine the ‘Friend Next Door’ vibe with the ‘I’ve Worked This Out, Now Let Me Teach You’ with aplomb.

NB: If you have an ideal community that includes a lot of mums/moms, this is a good vibe to lean into.

What of the rest?

In the interests of not making this a 7,000 word post, I’ve obviously left out many categories, including one of my personal favourites; Nerdy! (Hello to all #bookstagram peeps.)

Some of the other categories include:

• You Want What I’ve Got (think lifestyle/wealth creation) and a subset of this group; We Are Global Citizens aka the travel bloggers/digital nomads. (See the image at the top of this post for what that looks like. It’s often wildly aspirational and heavily edited to ‘curate the truth’. After all, nobody wants sand in their laptop and you can’t actually see your screen if you’re lying on a beach with no cover over you. But heh, why let reality get in the way of the fantasy you’re creating for your followers?),
• Influencer (an excellent category when you don’t actually have any real content to share but have either got serious narcissistic tendencies and/or are young, gorgeous and look good with or without your clothes),
• Sporty,
• Serious News,
• something I think of as The New Men’s Movement (think camping and hiking, cold water baths, veganism, and genuinely trying to become more emotionally intelligent), and
• This Is Me (another personal favourite filled with diverse identity-based accounts including LGBTIA, disability, ADHD, introverts, autism, and soooo many more).

And of course, there’s plenty of blending between the groups as well as the hybrids (think ‘Change The World’ meets ‘Friend Next Door’ or ‘All About Women’ meets ‘It’s All About the Vibe Baby’).

The categories aren’t hard and fast, so don’t get too caught up in trying to fit yourself neatly into a box. They’re designed to give you a sense of where people are playing in the social media landscape and what they’re doing there.

Journalling prompts

If you’re unsure where you belong, or want to further refine your brand, here are some journalling prompts to help clarify your thinking:

• Which intrigue or inspire you?
• Which do you hope never to see again as long as you live?
• Which do you think you can pull off?
• Which feel natural to you?
• Which have you been telling yourself you ‘should’ do but haven’t felt particularly drawn to actually doing it?
• If you had to put yourself in one category and choose to lean into it, which would be your top choice?
• Which category is missing which seems like an obvious category to you?
• Which sparked an emotional response in you?
• Which landed for you with the realisation; ‘Oh they’re my people!’
• Which did you feel connected to but like there was something missing? Something that you might be here to contribute to the group?
• If you could group together all the accounts that are emitting a similar vibe to you and your brand, what would you call yourselves? What ties the accounts together? What makes certain accounts within the group really sing for you?
• How might you adopt some of the best practices seen in the accounts above, or from some of your favourite brands?

Feeling nervous about really stepping up and letting people see you and your vibe?

We’re hosting a free four day visibility challenge starting 16 August 2022. Find out more and register to join us right here.