personal and professional in social media

Jun 26

Whoops! I’m Two People on Facebook

By Marijean Communications

Do you have two profiles on Facebook? If you do, your intention was probably to have a â€œprofessionalâ€ profile and a â€œpersonalâ€ one.

Guess what? This is what youâ€™ve done instead: you have given others reason to have the following reactions:

In a search, they are unsure which one of you to connect with â€” are you friends or professional contacts? Whose decision is that?
Hey! I thought we were friends! Why now are you shifting me over to your â€œbusinessâ€ self?
What are you up to personally that you feel like you need a totally different profile to protect your â€œprivateâ€ self?
You really donâ€™t understand Facebook, do you?

None of the reactions others have to you and your dual Facebook personalities are positive, are they? Furthermore, why on earth do you want to complicate your life by having to manage two different profiles?

You’re also making yourself vulnerable by violating Facebook’s terms of service — you know, that thing you clicked YES to and never actually read? Here’s a section:

See that part about not creating more than one account? If you end up having a hacking problem or other security breach, you’re going to have a really tough time getting anyone at Facebook to help you if you’ve violated any of these items. Just sayin’.

How to Stop Being Two People on Facebook

Youâ€™re going to have to deactivate one of your personalities. More than likely, its the newer one, the one you decided to create for a more â€œprofessionalâ€ appearance. Log in to that account.

Go to Account â€“> Account Settings â€“> Deactivate Account.

Now, I understand that you still have this conflict; that there are parts of your life you want to share with friends but not necessarily colleagues or business prospects. The way to manage that is with lists.

This will help: How to Create Lists, Save Some Privacy on Facebook in Five Easy Steps.

Really! Do it today!

Read this, too: My friend Michelle (Golden) Rivers has a great post on this topic as well â€” Managing Your â€œPrivate Life on Facebook While Developing Business.

Nov 29

Love0

Lost in Translation: How Social Media Tenets Got Dropped Between Personal and Professional Use

By Marijean Social Media

I’ve been talking and writing a lot lately (here, and here, and here) about ways that businesses have dropped the ball using social media. Two major venues in my community have missed significant opportunities to manage their reputations, particularly on Facebook, in the last week. Both rely on fourth quarter revenues to, in some cases, make their year. One is a shopping mall, the other, a movie theater; both totally consumer-facing and consumer-dependent businesses.

There are three main attributes of social media that seem have to been misunderstood or left out completely when the use of social media transferred from personal to professional use.

Social media’s strength is built on personal relationships; a business must also have a personal face and identified human beings behind the brand with which we (consumers) build relationships. No one builds a relationship with a logo.
Transparency, availability and responsiveness are what have made individuals superstars in the social space. Those affiliated with a brand or organization have done that brand a great service by acting on their behalf in a public way. Even when the chips are down, and the face of the company is the one to take ownership of an issue, a name and a face acting on behalf of a company is much more respected and welcome than the nameless, faceless corporate messaging.
The difference between social and mass media is that social media represents TWO-WAY CONVERSATION. In the age of mass media, such a thing didn’t exist. To treat social media as if it were mass media, by only broadcasting deals, offers, promotions and other self-serving content, is a sadly misinformed approach. Asking customers what they want, welcoming feedback and interacting with the public in the social space is the RIGHT WAY to manage your professional social presence. Always.

I think the reason why businesses have handled the transition to social integration so poorly is a lack of education and understanding of the tools and how they should be used. In some cases it’s arrogance, in others it’s the blind leading the blind.

I see a couple of scenarios; in one, businesses put a person in charge of social media who only knows how to use it personally. This is common when social strategy is left to the youngest person in the marketing department, or the digital native who has been using social media personally since she was a kid. Those skills do not automatically translate; just because a person knows how to write doesn’t mean they know how to write a communications plan. In the second scenario, businesses are doing what they see others doing, copying it or modeling the same online behavior, WITHOUT EVEN KNOWING IF ITS THE RIGHT APPROACH OR STRATEGY.

Of course both of these situations make me crazy. I hate to see any business, particularly small business, spending time or money without strategy, or not taking advantage of tools at their disposal, or seeking knowledge before diving in to marketing techniques they barely comprehend.

The public, particularly the users of social media, understand the difference and are quick to point out when companies are not following the rules of social media. They demand the kind of interaction they get personally from friends, even from a corporate level. It’s all personal to the consumer, and because of that, and the nature of the social space, all social strategy demands a personal approach.

Jul 16

Love0

Ambassador You; An Employee’s Role in Social Media

By Marijean Social Media

The most frequent topic at the social media workshops I give on behalf of Standing Partnership is the separation of personal and professional. This usually provides and opportunity to point out that PRIVATE and personal are different and there is NO PLACE on the internet for the private. None.

I think Dr. Ruth Westheimer said it best when she tweeted that if you’re going to make a sex tape, get your hair done, smile to the camera, because nothing like that ever stays private, so you might as well look good.

People are very concerned about separating their personal and their professional “selves” — I’ve written about this topic before — and for some, it makes sense to keep Facebook the place where they play and connect with friends, and LinkedIn where they do business and connect with prospects and colleagues. It’s fine, however you want to play it.

However!

As an employee of a corporation (or a nonprofit or an institute of higher learning or a hospital, etc.) you have the POTENTIAL to be an ambassador for that company with your social media engagement. And I’m not talking to the marketers, the development people, the HR folks — I’m talking to YOU. Every single employee has the potential to share the messages of the organization for which you work. You can use social media to position yourself as a more valuable employee. You can be smarter than other staff members because you’re listening to the social web, know what’s being said about the organization and are responding or sharing the opportunities to respond with the organization’s leadership.

This is why I encourage individuals to engage on Twitter using their own name (Gini Dietrich has a great post about this) and photo as opposed to the organization’s name with a logo. Sometimes I’m asked if mutiple people should tweet under an organization logo’d Twitter account and that’s fine, but it’s not an engagement model. People want to develop relationships with other PEOPLE, not logos or a twitter account where it’s unclear who they’re talking to (pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!). Step out from behind that logo curtain, people, and embrace the opportunity to be an ambassador for your workplace.

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