Should I Use My Personal Social Profile For Business?
Technology may grow but humanity never dies.
As
time had shown, there seems to be more authenticity when one connects with a
personal profile than a page run by the same person. The feeling and level of
engagement and response is
more vibrant than when dealing with a company’s
social media page. The reason for this is not strange. People love to do
business with people and not companies. They seem to know that people are
always behind the big and intimidating brands we see online, or at least, they
will be happy to find out.
As
valuable as company pages are, it may be time for some small business owners to
rethink how to use their personal profiles for business purposes.
It
is nearly impossible to make a sale or close a deal on social media if people
don’t trust you or can’t trust you. It is easier to convert a prospect to a client by connecting them to your personal profiles first. Before buying, most
clients will prefer to follow from afar; connecting with you but not engaging.
This follows that people buy out of emotion and then justify their action
later. Content might have as well been overthrown and relationship made king. With
your personal profile, when you build a relationship with your tribe, your
community and give to them, they will
most definitely give back to you and they will trust you.
Even
when people know your company page on Facebook and Instagram, connecting with
your personal profile is still valuable to them.
On
the hand, small business owners may be worried about revealing too much to the
public or having a mixed audience that has to see or know what doesn’t concern
them. It is a legitimate concern and understandable, however, there are
measures that handle such concerns. There are measures you can apply to restrict some of your Facebook friends from seeing your post.
Best Ways To Use Your Personal Profile For Business
Ø Connect With Your Colleagues
Start by connecting with your co-workers, colleagues, related professionals and relevant industry persons. This doesn’t only bring you closer to them, it also allow you to have a wider network of resource persons to get advice and information from. You can keep tab on them and what they are sharing with their followers. You can share same to your audience.
Ø Set Your Preferred Privacy Settings
As important as making sales is, protecting yourself in the social media world is also important. By default, you decide who you accept into your network of friends. But you can also decide not to see posts and updates from all your networks. This helps not to clog your feed with irrelevant updates. You need to be intentional about this from the onset. Social media can be noisy and one needs to filter through the noise otherwise, you will waste precious time in the no essential things of your trade.
Ø Set Up Your networks List
Setting up your list of friends and grouping them into which belong to which helps to keep your personal photos and updates accessible to only a particular set of people. This setting enables you to decide which group sees which update. You can as well decide which group or set of connections you will like to see updates from. This setting is available on both Facebook and twitter.
Ø Share professional Posts
The
Quality of your posts determines how serious people take you. Make posts that resonate with the audience you are providing service for. You’ve got an award
or your company got in the news for a positive achievement, this is where you
shout about it to your network. You can share a link or updates that is not
directly from your company to your connections. You can offer advice or tips
or remind your audience of what they
know already. It’s a busy life and people always forget. Be generous with your
shares and posts.
It
is still your personal profile and it is also a good idea to show that you are
human too. Humorous or entertaining posts are not forbidden on your personal
profile but caution should be applied not to overstep on sensitive issues that
may damage your reputation and career.
Social
media is a two-way communication and not a megaphone. As much as you can, reply
to comments and inquiries from your connections, especially people you think are engaging
with you for the first time. The magic it does is that it solidifies the trust
people have for you. The feeling people get when you respond to them online produces in them a sense of importance and they often reciprocate it at once by following or liking your posts.