Protect Your Personal Brand By Avoiding Social Media Jail!
Protect Your Personal Brand By Avoiding Social Media Jail!
Never a truer quote:
“Social media is the new permanent record”
Whilst you make use of your social media platforms think about how you want to be seen with the followers and connections you are making. We are at a time where we really are mixing business with pleasure by making connections on all Social Media platforms with not only those we want to keep in touch with on a personal level but a professional level too!
Historically LinkedIn and Twitter were platforms to build up your professional connections / followings but there are a lot of people now using their personal Facebook profiles to build up and stay in touch with connections for business purposes. With that in mind just how much should you be sharing (especially on Facebook) when your personal and professional connections are all mixed in one,
I think you should always be your authentic self and in my opinion:
- It’s ok to have and share your opinions (strong or not), it can start a healthy debate but share in a way that you are not going to alienate clients or prospects, the idea is to keep clients not give them reason to run a mile from you.
- It’s ok to have a bad day, funnily enough you’re not the only one who has them, there are going to be many times that something makes you angry but is it necessary to take it out on your status updates by ranting and raving like a loony about something that actually once you’ve calmed down might not be so bad after all? Or again once you’ve calmed down you’ll be able to articulate your thoughts in a different manner.
- It’s ok to share images of you on a night out having fun with friends, most of us do this but is it really necessary to show all the end of the night, I think not – however funny it may seem at the time.
Obviously you can delete status updates, images etc but in some cases the damage is already done, wrong opinions formed and screen shots could have been made.
Yes social media allows us freedom of speech but it doesn’t mean we always have to take the liberty of using it at any given opportunity.
Avoid putting yourself in business prison by thinking twice, three times if you have to before you post, taking time to do so will ensure you don’t lose potential clients, referrals or business opportunities, like it or not your connections will be forming an opinion good or bad via the type of content you are posting.
Sometimes it’s best to step away from social media and keep your permanent record clear and your personal brand protected!
Love, Dee
xx
