In my interview last week with Jenny from Allyeska Photography on her use of social media to promote her business, she talked giving her business a face and personality, and being open.
I heard a story recently where a business owner made a comment on their official Facebook Page criticising another person’s work. What they didn’t realise is that the person they were criticising was one of their Facebook fans who was very upset by the incident.
Apart from the fact that the author of the comment was being unprofessional, it showed they had no real interest or connection with their audience, their “fans”. They were operating in broadcast mode.
That’s not social media. That’s using an online social networking platform as your personal soapbox.
The lesson we can take from this is to not fall in the trap of blurring the line between personal social networking and professional social media. Particularly for self-employed and sole traders, the greater your investment in social media the greater your personal actions impact on your brand. At that end of the scale, your brand is not defined by your marketing campaigns but by you, your personality and behaviour. This can be a good thing as Jenny has shown with Allyeska Photography but if you can’t self-censor then perhaps you should reconsider engaging with your customers through social media.
Remember, once you publish something on the Internet it’s there forever.
// purecaffeine.com: user experience design, social experience design, social media, Gov 2.0, design thinking and service design blog by designer Nathanael Boehm, Canberra, Australia. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 0 comments… add one now }