Balance or Separation: Managing Professional & Personal Social Media Pages | Part 2

In a bid to be conscious of our thoughts, actions and followers – persons make the decision to create a “balance” in their lives by separating their personalities, ideas and interests. But is separation balance or dishonesty? As we strive to ensure that the right followers get the “right” information (through the separation of our accounts) are we also in the same breath hiding information?

When you decided to enter the professional world, the world that decided that “toosexy4u@hotmail.com”, wild drunk poses as profile pictures and curse words won’t be acceptable – did you delete these things, start new accounts or increase your privacy settings to keep inquisitive eyes at bay?

No matter your response, or your current role in life (personal or professional) you are the representative of your own brand firstly. All other roles are secondary. So is the separation of your personal and professional social media pages really necessary? Some will still say yes, and we will discuss why.

As promised from our previous post, where we discussed balancing of social media accounts – this time around we have to discuss the pros and cons of separating. The concept of setting targets, guidelines and structure to how our online presence is assessed.

Pros of Separating Accounts

• Focused. Content posted will be inextricably linked to the business – services, deals, tips, news, staff, etc.
• Once your posts have personality, followers are sure of the type of content to expect, and you are certain that the followers have some interest in the business.
• You now have a targeted group of persons to which you can share or pitch the services of your business.
• Targets for growth can be set for the professional accounts.
• You now have control of the persons who are allowed in your personal space (through privacy settings), while being able to leave the professional account open.
• Clear work-life boundaries.

Cons of Separating Accounts

• Hard to manage. Will you always remember to devote equal time to each brand.
• As a small business, you might need to hire someone to manage the professional account on your behalf. This may not necessarily be very cost effective for a new business.
• Are you being viewed as being dishonest by separating (hiding) an account from followers.

Social media accounts require a professional human, lol. Weird term, I know. But it’s true. We want to live our lives on social media, socializing and being entertained, but at the same time with enough decorum that when our employers view our pages we can still look them straight in the eyes the next day and not have the slightest embarrassing moment.

So how do we do this?

By separating our accounts or balancing all personalities in the social online sphere? In making this choice, be sure to remember, that whatever you post online is no longer yours. It can almost be likened to sending a text message which you can’t erase from the receiver. And no matter your life long aim to separate your accounts, the right investigator can uncover what you have been trying so ‘hard’ to hide.

It’s Pixel Perfect’s Managing Director, Conrad Mathison, was recently put on the spot by Wealth Magazine, and asked his views on this very topic. He will share pertinent points from his “panel discussion to guest speaker” at Corporate Mingle presentation. His thoughts, as a young entrepreneur, socialite, friend, brother, son should be even more enlightening. Is he balancing or separating? Will he even choose a side? All will be revealed in his blog post.

Be the MVP

This IPP Content Marketing Series: Be the Most Valued Provider (MVP), hopes to offer an entertaining, informative and memorable insight into this whole idea of content marketing.

It might seem crazy what I’m about to say next ….. but I can’t tell you what content marketing exactly is. Content marketing as a concept isn’t definitive. How we define and understand concepts is relative to our approaches and practices.

At IPP, content marketing is customized or personalized education, by combining the interests of consumers with the product offerings of our clients.

Joe Pulizzi, who is said to have coined the term ‘content marketing’ will describe it another way and other ‘experts’ based on technological evolutions may add their variations.

                 HOWEVER, WHAT WE CAN ALL AGREE ON                    IS THE INTENT OF CONTENT MARKETING                 – ATTENTION FOR RETENTION

                  What is expected of the business using it?

• Businesses are expected to present the product in an entertaining manner, give information and, make the product memorable to drive sales.

What is the expectation of the consumer having been exposed to content marketing?

• Having been exposed to the product via content marketing strategies, the consumer should have been entertained, given relevant and useful information about the product and, had such a personal impact that it was so memorable to cause purchase or use.

Did you see what just happened there? The aim of this series reiterates what content marketing should do. It should entertain, give information and make the product memorable.

HOW CAN YOU BE THE MVP?

Businesses must aim to be the MVP for their niche markets:

• Interestingly presented truth gains loyalty, not fluff. Tell the story of your product well, don’t give fairytales.

• One-size fits all blasts can’t and won’t work. Relevant and useful information must be given on a consumer-to-consumer basis

• Know that content marketing isn’t the same as social media marketing. Social media is merely a distribution channel used in content marketing

• Create valuable content using infographics, blog posts, memes, ebooks, case studies, testimonials, videos or even a combination

Coming next in our IPP Content Marketing Series, we will explore the history of content marketing. Did you know that 1895 was the birth of content marketing, with a customized magazine? That’s 119 years ago ….. I thought this was a new concept, didn’t you?

                                                                Until then …..                                                                                  What is your definition of content marketing?                                      Do you know any MVP that is using content marketing?                                                                 Share it with us!!!

Message from the MD

I founded It’s Pixel Perfect (IPP) because I believed that building a great marketing agency would improve businesses, people’s lives and, hopefully the world. In the two years – plus that has followed, my team and I have been constantly delighted by the ways in which we have impacted business while not shying away from our social responsibilities.

In the next decade, however, the competition for new revenues, new markets, new products and new services will continue to intensify. I know, that if we want to survive this period we have to operate in completely new ways, making sustainability integral to our innovation and performance.

Toward the end of 2013, I found guidance in the words of the late Nelson Mandela. He said, “there is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” It is this idea, that I used as a stepping stone toward the rebuilding of IPP. Last December, I began by reorganizing the management team around a core service to improve responsibility and accountability across IPP. We had a big clean up. We needed it! We had so many opportunities, and unless I made those hard choices, we may have ended up spreading ourselves too thin and not have had the impact that we would want. This left me with no choice but to focus on a core service, content marketing. This service would be cleaner, more consistent and would bring more value to our customers. It would allow all our services to work together seamlessly. It is still early days, and we have a long way to go, but this process will tremendously impact the we way we do business going forward.

Our dependency on technology for efficiency has single-handedly been our change maker since the start of the year. Our customers access to changes and information has been well streamlined by the use of several unique open source softwares and web applications. It is however futile to have the right resources and not have the right team members. That in itself was a roller coaster ride I won’t forget. Finding the right fit and the right balance to meet the required roles we needed in the company, certainly had its moments. We tried several interns with various skill sets and leadership capabilities. As talented as some were, we just couldn’t fit the pieces together seamlessly. I think we got the break-through when I recognized that we had to develop a team of A-Players who understood the philosophy of Performance with Purpose. After understanding that, I recreated a team with several unique roles and since then we have been on the road to sustainable growth. I know at this point that the mountains we climb will be steep, but we will climb them together.

There has been something slightly funny in the office that right now we may be known more for our philanthropic duties than the marketing ideas that we have executed for our clients. I wasn’t amused initially, because I thought our focus was being misjudged. After much thought, I realised that we were right down the path of what I had initially wanted. Social Responsibility is at the centre of our business and we won’t change that now or in the future. It is who we are. WE LOVE PEOPLE. We had our first successful charity activity in December “Give Where You Live: Christmas Treat” at the UWI Hospital. Since then, we have continued our philanthropic activities with our #LoveMore campaign and our “Give Where You Live: Toy Drive” which starts this month.

Relevant information and a lightning fast approach in delivering clients needs are key in our core service. We know if we keep our customers informed with information they NEED to know, it will help them to understand our business process and also potentially understand the changes in their industries. That is why I’m so excited about the relaunch of our blog. It allows us to execute projects for our clients, then write a blog post to explain how it works. We recognize that if we hold their hands during this time, they will hold our hands in the future.

We have observed that the financial situation of this country has placed businesses in a corner and thus they need excellent return on their investment (ROI) to meet their basic needs. They need results out of a hat like magic. Can we blame them? No we can’t. We have accepted the situation that we are in, what our customers are faced with and we are equipping ourselves with the skills, the patience, and the people to survive this period and help our clients to reach their goals.

I am proud of the progress we are making but is this the best we can do? I certainly do not think so but I know we can, must and we will do better.

– Conrad Mathison