SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE
"Think of
personalizing
your brand,
not getting
personal."
HOW DO YOU BALANCE YOUR
PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL
SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE?
I
I started on Twitter in 2007 as @MarketingProfs, sharing headlines
from the site and representing the brand there. Then five years later
I resuscitated @AnnHandley on Twitter as a personal ID—a handle
I’d been squatting on for years but never used.
Why the second account? I guess the easiest answer is that it
seemed … I don’t know, time? Because Twitter itself had shifted.
In 2007, when I started on Twitter, things felt a bit quieter. A bit
under the radar. I started and assumed the ‘Profs Twitter account
first on a lark (let’s see what this is all about, shall we?) and then as
it grew … I just kept at it.
Why? Simply: I enjoyed it. (There’s nothing quite like it.) And it’s
worked for us. And now, I’m pretty sure MarketingProfs is one of
very few major business-to-business brands whose Twitter account
is run solely by a shareholder. (Do you know of another? Let me
know.)
account has climbed to almost 500K followers, I’ve realized I had
recalibrated the way I interact with people there, almost by
accident.
It’s been a subtle shift, but an important one.
This idea was on my mind when a question came up at a business
event where I spoke recently:
How do you balance the professional-you with the personal-you on
social media networks?
In the moment, I advocated for a blending of the two. At its heart,
that’s the real opportunity of social media, isn’t it? People do
business with people—not faceless, soulless edifices. Don’t you
want your prospects and customers online to have an opportunity
to get to know you, just as your friends, colleagues and contacts in
real life do?
A SUBTLE BUT IMPORTANT SHIFT However, since that event, I’ve given the subtleties of the matter
and my own behavior a little more thought.
As Twitter grew in influence as both a social platform and a
communication channel for companies, and as the MarketingProfs So, how do you balance these two sides of your online identity? Is it
one over the other for you? Or are they one and the same?
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