Updated: 10/26/22
Separate your Social Media from Business and Personal.
This is a topic that is a little controversial and yet for the life of me I can not understand why. There are so many people out there who DO NOT have separate accounts for their business and their personal lives. In todays society there is so much emphasis on social media that it just seems like common sense that you have two separate accounts.
I think it is generally agreed that the purpose of Social media is to “keep in contact with people”….this is true for a person as well as a business. Therefore any posts should be targeted toward the appropriate audience.
Admittedly this subject is a little one sided in the fact that you can get away with posting business stuff on your personal account but you really can’t or at least shouldn’t post personal stuff on your business account. You can have friends and family "like" your business page(the more the better), but you should not accept customers and potential clients as “friends” on your personal profile.
Let’s be real here….none of your customers really care about what you had for dinner last night, what club you hang out at, what toy you recently bought yourself, what you bought your kids for Christmas or what your family did for vacation this year. While on the surface one might think that opening up to your customers is a good thing so that they view you as a “real person”…..the truth is that you are running more of a risk of losing those customers because of a “personal” post then you are of retaining them. If for no other reason then the fact that their news feeds not only get bombarded with what your business is doing but on top of that they then have to see a picture of your half empty bottle of alcohol sitting on the table of your local bar….what message do you think this is sending?... And need I even say anything about the posting of the taboo subjects of Politics and Religion, While your true Friends may know your stance on such subjects…you do not know your “Cyber Friends” well enough to assume they care about your views.
In reaching out to find members for our Retail Airbrush Facebook Group and continuing to reach out to others, it amazes me how many of our members and non members do not have even a simple email address on their Facebook pages so they can be contacted….especially their “Personal Page” . It amazes me that even those that combined the two(business and personal) have no other form of contact listed on their pages other than Facebook messaging,
Here is a little fact that is not widely known…..If you have a personal page (Facebook) and you do not have any contact information on it and a potential customer wants to contact you, they have no other alternative than to message you. If that person is NOT your friend then you will not receive any notification of that message….you will get it, you just will not know that it is there. It will automatically go to a folder entitled “message requests”…which used to be called “other”. Full disclosure here, With Facebook acquiring Instagram and now introducing the “Business Suite” app which we here at Anything Airbrushed plus use, it is hard to know whether or not this is still true because we WILL receive messages thru the Business Suite app….but this is only because we have an actual “Business Page” So whether or not people who only have a “personal page” are now getting notifications, we don’t know…..but….read the following….
Try this test... If you are on a computer/laptop right now reading this, go to your personal Facebook page and look up at the little message icon in the upper right corner (looks like a talking balloon with a little squiggle in the middle). When you click on that all the messages you have sent and received pop up. Across the top of that drop down window you will see “Chats” and a few different icons one of these being the three dots (…) which is the “options” choice. If you click that icon you will get the “Chat settings” options. One of which is “Message requests” This is the dead folder that all those messages from people who are not your “friend” will go. As a matter of fact a few of you might even have a message in there from me inviting you to join our "Retail Airbrush" group on Facebook, since for some of you it was the only way I knew to contact you at the time. On your phone if you are using “Messenger” the “Message Request” folder is on the “people” menu tab at the bottom of your screen….or at least it used to be,
With all that being said, this is yet another reason to have a separate business page since you WILL get notices if people message you thru the business page. But regardless, if you are trying to make money as a legitimate business or even as just a part time person making a little extra money. There is absolutely no reason why you should not at the very least, have a business email listed on your personal “About” information.
To be honest, there really isn’t even a reason why you shouldn’t have a “business page” these days since it is so easy to do. On Facebook, just go the the menu “nine dots” icon at the top right of your personal page next to the ”messenger icon” and look at the “Create” column and then scroll down to “page”. This will bring up a brand new blank page that you now get to create just like you created your “personal” page. You now have a legitimate “business” page and can now invite all your friends to like it. Now you have the ability to separate you “business from personal posts”. You can then just switch between your “page “ and your personal profile to post all the appropriate things you want for each instead of mixing the two. We suggest also doing the same thing for Instagram as you can now cross post between the two, which means you can create a post in either and select to also have it post on the other.
On Instagram click on the menu icon in the top right corner of your personal account (it’s 3 lines on top of each other) then go to Settings and privacy, scroll down to almost the bottom of the page to “Account Type and tools”. You now have two choices, If your existing “personal account” has a a lot more business related stuff posted that you really want people to see then you can change this existing personal page to a “professional account”… BUT…we then highly suggest opening a new “personal account” and from then on only post the appropriate things to the appropriate account. You other choice is you can start a whole new “Business account”. If you want to convert your existing personal account to a professional account then click “Switch to professional account” …if you want to start a business page from scratch then click “add new professional account”.
On Twitter, It’s seems best to just start a business page from scratch. However you can do the same as Instagram and switch an existing “personal account” to a business account.
Now to take full advantage of having a business page on both Facebook and Instagram there are a few other things to do like “verify your page”, set up advertising accounts etc…but these things are not necessary until you plan on actually using these accounts to make money. You can learn about all these things by going to the help pages as well as just doing google searches.
Here are a few things I highly recommend if you plan on using social media(especially Facebook and Instagram) to gain business.
1.) First and foremost….separate your accounts!!! If you create a new “Business” page you can simply invite all your family and friends on your personal page to “like” your business page…thus you have an automatic following. Once you have invited all of them you can then go back and unfriend all those that are not actually your friends and thus empty out your personal page of all these people who really do nothing but clog up your own news feed.
2.) Have a separate email address for your business and make sure it is posted on your page(especially your personal page) and that you check it regularly.
3.) Fill out your contact information with ALL the ways a person can connect with you….phone number, address(if you have an an actual location), and list all your other social media accounts so they can follow those also.
4.) Get a separate business phone number. With the advancement in technology these days it kills me how many are using their own personal cell phones as their business line also. If you have an actual brick and mortar location you should have a land line. If not, these days it costs very little to add a simple basic phone to an existing cell phone account of which you can use that phone for business. If you feel you have to have a smart phone for business then get a separate smart phone. For those with iPhone 10 and above you can have two separate numbers on the same phone. If you happen to close your retail location you can have the landline number "ported over" to an iPhone 10 or above and still keep the same business number you had in you retail location. With the iPhone 10 it is very handy to only have to carry one phone and when a call comes in there is an “S” for secondary line(business line) and a “P” for Primary line(personal number) this way you can tell if its a customer calling or a personal call and you can therefore answer the phone appropriately..... Sorry, but there is nothing more unprofessional than answering a Business phone with simply “Hello”. When people call a business they want to know that they are getting an actual business….not the local drug dealer on the corner...lol
5.) Post regularly on your social media, it does not have to be everyday but at least a couple times a week. To many posts will cause people to block your posts so they do not keep getting them. They won’t “unlike” your page they will just block your posts from coming through.
6.) Get to know how Facebook actually works. Just because you have 1000 people liking your page, only about 10% of them will ever see any of your posts because Facebook recently changed how they determine what posts show up in our customers newsfeed. Do your research to find out what I am talking about.
7.) Use the “boost” and “promote” posts options on Facebook…this helps with getting your posts out there to more people and costs very little….you actually determine how much you want to spend…..(a subject for another post)
8.) If you insist on keeping your business and personal together then make sure you have contact information on your "About" section for your business. You should at least have a business email address that you check regularly. It would also be highly recommended that you have a business phone number listed that is separate from you personal phone number.
9.) It doesn't do any good to have your business and personal page together if it is set to private. Since most people have their personal pages set to private for friends and family than any "business" related posts are not being seen by any NEW potential customers anyway. There is nothing more annoying then trying to get a hold of someone who claims to be an airbrush artist yet has nothing but pictures of their dinner from last night posted on their page....post business related stuff regularly if you are keeping the two together….but again, this is going to eventually annoy your “Real Friends” who might actually care about what you had for dinner last night...lol...who am I kidding, NOBODY cares what you had for dinner last night...lol....stop posting your Dinner!
Lastly....if you insist on keeping your personal and business page together, here are a few questions you need the ask yourself before your post…
1.) What is it I am trying to say with this post?
2.) Is it possible I may offend people that I do not even know?
3.) Would what I am posting be better served on a “business page”
Hope this post gives you a little in-site on how social media can work for and against you.
As always feel free to leave comments or ask question