Should you separate personal and professional social media?

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Ever since I started doing social media consulting, I’ve been getting the same question.

Should I create different facebook and twitter profiles for personal and business?

social media privacyThe reason why I keep getting this question is that there really isn’t a good answer.  However, there are clear advantages to each alternative, so here is a list of some of the pros and cons of each approach.

Separating Business and Personal

Advantages

  1. Privacy – If you’re not comfortable sharing your personal life, a separate business account might be a good idea.
  2. You won’t offend anyone – If you’re worried that your lifestyle might offend someone or look unprofessional, you might need separate accounts.
  3. You won’t annoy your non-business friends with your business stuff.

Disadvantages

  1. Complexity – it is more work to manage two accounts.
  2. Confusion – if people are searching for you, they could potentially find either account.
  3. Conflicting message – a lot of what we do ends up on the internet anyway.  Stuff that’s on your personal profiles could become public and make you look worse than if you had just had an open profile to begin with.

Having a single account that serves both business and personal.

Advantages

  1. Easy – only one account to manage.
  2. Increases your marketing potential by employing family and friends – How many of your friends and family members really know what you do?  If you ‘market’ to them as well as your business contacts, they can refer people to you.  That’s business that you wouldn’t have had otherwise.
  3. More authentic – You’re not going to look like you’re hiding anything if you disclose your party picks on facebook in advance. ;)

Disadvantages

  1. You might offend someone and lose opportunities.  As more and more people start ‘getting’ the social media thing, this becomes less of a problem, but I think it’s only fair to acknowledge that someone could be offended by your tailgate pics from the previous weekend.
  2. You give up a degree of privacy.  If you’re an intensely personal individual, there are probably lots of things about social media that just don’t sit well with you.
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  • Susan

    You forgot some major disadvantages of have business mixed with personal. Even if you setup all the privacy for profile viewing and friends, ALL of the emails and alerts that have to do with the business group or fan pages will go to your PERSONAL email account. I find this inappropriate. I want to use a work email for work and a personal email for personal. The two should not mix. I don't want RSVPs for a work event and responses for a work posting to go to my personal email account.

    I feel bad for the major corporations who have a single employee have to ruin his/her personal account by running the Fan Page for Snickers or Tide. And not only that, if they created that Fan Page, their account can never be removed from that Page as they are the creator. Too bad if those corporations fire that person. The creator cannot be deleted and has the power to alter the page even if they are not an admin.

    FB needs to allow us keep business separate from personal.

  • Susan

    You forgot some major disadvantages of have business mixed with personal. Even if you setup all the privacy for profile viewing and friends, ALL of the emails and alerts that have to do with the business group or fan pages will go to your PERSONAL email account. I find this inappropriate. I want to use a work email for work and a personal email for personal. The two should not mix. I don’t want RSVPs for a work event and responses for a work posting to go to my personal email account.

    I feel bad for the major corporations who have a single employee have to ruin his/her personal account by running the Fan Page for Snickers or Tide. And not only that, if they created that Fan Page, their account can never be removed from that Page as they are the creator. Too bad if those corporations fire that person. The creator cannot be deleted and has the power to alter the page even if they are not an admin.

    FB needs to allow us keep business separate from personal.

    • http://tribeswell.com Colin Clark

      I use separate email accounts for my social media accounts. There’s no way I can keep up with social media messages and email at the same time. Usually if something interesting happens on facebook or twitter, I’ll find out about it there, not in my email.

      As far as individuals within a comany… it’s definitely a concern. For fan pages, I recommend creating a ‘dummy’ account if it’s a huge organization. That way several people can contribute and it doesn’t ruin someone’s personal account.

      However, employees can still use their personal accounts to promote marketing initiatives, interact with people on fan pages, and just be real with people online.

      • Susan

        “For fan pages, I recommend creating a ‘dummy’ account if it’s a huge organization.”

        Totally agree. Totally against FB policy, which is why I am annoyed.

        • http://tribeswell.com Colin Clark

          I don’t mind violating Facebook’s policies. Social media is all about ‘sticking it to the man’ as far as I’m concerned.

          • susan

            Except when they close all of your accounts, which happens. I am the point in my life where I choose which battles to fight and how to fight them. I would rather not have the account that I use all of the time closed and continuously write FB, and support others to write FB, to change rules that make no sense.

  • Susan

    You forgot some major disadvantages of have business mixed with personal. Even if you setup all the privacy for profile viewing and friends, ALL of the emails and alerts that have to do with the business group or fan pages will go to your PERSONAL email account. I find this inappropriate. I want to use a work email for work and a personal email for personal. The two should not mix. I don't want RSVPs for a work event and responses for a work posting to go to my personal email account.

    I feel bad for the major corporations who have a single employee have to ruin his/her personal account by running the Fan Page for Snickers or Tide. And not only that, if they created that Fan Page, their account can never be removed from that Page as they are the creator. Too bad if those corporations fire that person. The creator cannot be deleted and has the power to alter the page even if they are not an admin.

    FB needs to allow us keep business separate from personal.

  • http://tribeswell.com Colin Clark

    I use separate email accounts for my social media accounts. There's no way I can keep up with social media messages and email at the same time. Usually if something interesting happens on facebook or twitter, I'll find out about it there, not in my email.

    As far as individuals within a comany… it's definitely a concern. For fan pages, I recommend creating a 'dummy' account if it's a huge organization. That way several people can contribute and it doesn't ruin someone's personal account.

    However, employees can still use their personal accounts to promote marketing initiatives, interact with people on fan pages, and just be real with people online.

  • Susan

    “For fan pages, I recommend creating a 'dummy' account if it's a huge organization.”

    Totally agree. Totally against FB policy, which is why I am annoyed.

  • http://tribeswell.com Colin Clark

    I don't mind violating Facebook's policies. Social media is all about 'sticking it to the man' as far as I'm concerned.

  • susan

    Except when they close all of your accounts, which happens. I am the point in my life where I choose which battles to fight and how to fight them. I would rather not have the account that I use all of the time closed and continuously write FB, and support others to write FB, to change rules that make no sense.

  • http://tribeswell.com Colin Clark

    I use separate email accounts for my social media accounts. There's no way I can keep up with social media messages and email at the same time. Usually if something interesting happens on facebook or twitter, I'll find out about it there, not in my email.

    As far as individuals within a comany… it's definitely a concern. For fan pages, I recommend creating a 'dummy' account if it's a huge organization. That way several people can contribute and it doesn't ruin someone's personal account.

    However, employees can still use their personal accounts to promote marketing initiatives, interact with people on fan pages, and just be real with people online.

  • http://tribeswell.com Colin Clark

    I use separate email accounts for my social media accounts. There's no way I can keep up with social media messages and email at the same time. Usually if something interesting happens on facebook or twitter, I'll find out about it there, not in my email.

    As far as individuals within a comany… it's definitely a concern. For fan pages, I recommend creating a 'dummy' account if it's a huge organization. That way several people can contribute and it doesn't ruin someone's personal account.

    However, employees can still use their personal accounts to promote marketing initiatives, interact with people on fan pages, and just be real with people online.

  • Susan

    “For fan pages, I recommend creating a 'dummy' account if it's a huge organization.”

    Totally agree. Totally against FB policy, which is why I am annoyed.

  • Susan

    “For fan pages, I recommend creating a 'dummy' account if it's a huge organization.”

    Totally agree. Totally against FB policy, which is why I am annoyed.

  • http://tribeswell.com Colin Clark

    I don't mind violating Facebook's policies. Social media is all about 'sticking it to the man' as far as I'm concerned.

  • http://tribeswell.com Colin Clark

    I don't mind violating Facebook's policies. Social media is all about 'sticking it to the man' as far as I'm concerned.

  • susan

    Except when they close all of your accounts, which happens. I am the point in my life where I choose which battles to fight and how to fight them. I would rather not have the account that I use all of the time closed and continuously write FB, and support others to write FB, to change rules that make no sense.

  • susan

    Except when they close all of your accounts, which happens. I am the point in my life where I choose which battles to fight and how to fight them. I would rather not have the account that I use all of the time closed and continuously write FB, and support others to write FB, to change rules that make no sense.

  • http://twitter.com/kvetchingeditor Chaviva E.

    PS: It’s against Facebook policy to have two accounts.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ravonsheed-Aaron/516405678 Ravonsheed Aaron

    I recently learned that ”35% employers decided not to offer a job to a candidate based on the content uncovered on a social networking site”. So whatever you choose to do, better be careful with what you post and rather use a site like linkedIn or http://www.studentgenius.com to put all your professional info so that you can direct others to it.

    • http://tribeswell.com Colin Clark

      Thanks for the reply! I think it’s an awesome idea to put up profiles in as many places as possible, especially if they are sites that are for professional networking.

      I know that a lot of employers would possibly not hire someone because of something sketchy on Facebook or Twitter, but the reverse is also true. If you are constantly doing cool things (things related to your industry especially), then you are probably more likely to get hired.

      In most cases I’m sure that shady social media stuff is a contributing factor, but those people might have been shady anyway. People who do awesome work will generally get hired in spite of a few mild party pics on FB. Just my 2 cents.

  • Alistair Blair

    Using “lists” on facebook, and “circles” on G+, there should be no problem with keeping personal comments separate from “public” comments.

  • http://twitter.com/lorraineball Lorraine Ball

    One thing you didn’t mention:  What happens when the business grows beyond you?    It was hard to let go, but now, three months after the split, I am really happy with the results.  @roundpeg is focused on business.Several members of my team all help manage this account.  @lorraineball is a more fun personal  account.   The added benefit?  I have a small follow list I really enjoy.

    • http://tribeswell.com Colin Clark

      That’s true.

      At the time that I originally wrote this post, I was always getting questions like “should I have 2 facebook PROFILES” or should I have 2 twitter accounts as well as the company page. 

      I think it totally makes sense to have a company account that everyone manages. BUT, I get calls all the time from people who say “my boss created a separate facebook profile for our fan page because he doesn’t want his name attached to it and everything is screwed up and nobody knows what’s going on”. 

      A lot of people still aren’t comfortable with having their information online so they want to do this split where they have this closed world with one account and high privacy settings and separate accounts for business that anyone can see.

      I guess that’s fine if that’s what you really want to do, but frankly it’s a little weird when the vast majority of people have already adapted to the new technology.

      After all… your Facebook profile IS YOU. Your twitter account IS YOU. Your company account IS YOUR COMPANY.

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