In this climate of deeply divided political and cultural issues, it’s very easy to offend someone just by replying, retweeting, or even posting on the wrong social media account. Now, if you happen to work in news media, politics, or a religious organization, this article isn’t for you. I would expect to see those types of posts on your social media.
Your Professional Social Media Image is at Stake
However, if you are trying to sell a product or service to the average consumer (B2C) or to business people (B2B), you need to make sure you don’t alienate a potential customer by liking or commenting on political or religious posts. Remember, too, it’s not just your company’s brand image that’s at stake. It’s your personal, professional image, also.
Keep in mind that just about everything you do online is public.
So if someone Googles your name, more than likely they’ll find your personal accounts, as well as professional/business accounts. If you post political or religious views on your personal accounts – that’s OK – it’s expected.
Here’s how the individual social media networks break down when it comes to personal vs. business:
Firstly, you need a personal account to create a business page. However, because of Facebook’s transparency rules, you are connected to your business page. If you’re a Realtor, author, or consultant, and use your name as a business, have a separate business page for business only. Don’t use the same picture for your personal account and your business page! You need to be able to tell them apart. Put a professional-looking picture rather than a casual one on the business page.
This is the professional network. Obviously, unless you work in politics or a religious organization, keep politics and religion out of your posts. There may be an occasion when politics affects businesses. In that case, if the news is relevant to your business, then it’s OK to share it. Keep in mind that LinkedIn has two profile aspects: Individual People (like the White Pages) and Company Pages (like the Yellow Pages). If you want to learn more about how to use LinkedIn properly and effectively, click here for a free resource.
X (Formerly Twitter)
Here, you should have 2 separate accounts with 2 separate emails. The personal one should be in your name, and the professional/business one should be in your company name and logo. But be careful! Watch which account you’re posting to. (I have, more times than I’d care to admit, sent a personal post to the business account by accident. You can go and quickly delete it, but be aware that in the few seconds that it was out there, someone probably saw it.)
Similar to X, you can have 2 separate accounts. If you set up an account on Pinterest.com, you’re setting up a personal account. To set up a business account, go to business.pinterest.com. They’ve made it easy to convert a personal account into a business one. However, make sure you delete any personal boards before converting to a business account. If you want, you can “share” boards between your business and personal accounts. Be aware that the boards will appear on both accounts. It’s better to have business-related boards on your personal account than personal boards on your business account.
Owned by Meta, which also owns Facebook, it’s easy to accidentally mix business with personal. Like Pinterest and X, you can have to separate accounts with different emails. Instagram is 95% mobile and all visuals. That is, photos, graphics & videos. Connect and share to FB at the same time. However, make sure that your personal Instagram account connects to your personal FB page and your business Instagram connects to your FB business page. AND watch which account you’re posting to!
You can have more than one account registered in the mobile app, so make sure your picture is on your personal one, and your business logo is on your business one, so you can tell the difference. (If you don’t think your business needs a logo, then you need to check out this article.)
Furthermore, if your business is B2B and not very visual, then you really shouldn’t even bother with Instagram. (Or TikTok, for that matter). For instance, I only have a personal Instagram account. One of my B2B clients has an Instagram account that we set up just to get more reach when we advertise on Facebook, but we get better results from Facebook than from Instagram.
YouTube
Here, too, you should keep personal and business separate. Don’t use your business account to like and save videos that you personally want to watch later. Use a personal account for that. You can have a personal account just for viewing and entertainment without posting any videos. I do. People can see which videos you’ve liked by giving a thumbs up and which you’ve saved to playlists (if they are public). A potential client can easily click on “videos liked” on your channel and see them. You don’t want to offend anybody, and people these days are easily offended. Also, you don’t want to mix family videos with business promotions.
Public vs Private Social Media Accounts
On the business accounts, you want everything public. That’s the idea. You’ll get found that way. On the other hand, on your personal social media accounts, you can choose to keep different areas private or only visible to friends and connections. Each network has privacy settings.
What about Commenting?
Watch what you comment on! Be nice. Don’t insult people. Yes, there are stupid trolls out there, and you may not agree with everything posted, but putting a vile comment on someone’s post may come back to haunt you. You don’t know if a potential client is seeing it.
If you’re not sure how you’ve set up your social media accounts, schedule a free 15-minute phone consult and send me the links to your accounts, and I’ll review them with you.
You can also schedule a 1:1 coaching call if you need help straightening out your accounts.
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