JPL - A Strategic, Integrated Communications Company

So you’ve decided to get serious about using social media to promote your business. You want to use all of its power as a networking tool, you want to present yourself as an expert in your field, and you’d like to raise your firm’s profile within your community. Great. The first step is to define what sort of online identity you want to project and then be disciplined about projecting that.

Let’s assume that you, like many people, already have a Facebook account and you have a profile on LinkedIn. The identity you project in each of these is probably very different. On LinkedIn, you are the buttoned-up professional who is well-positioned for the next client project. Your Facebook identity on the other hand … well, let’s just say that you may have appeared in some photos where you let your hair down a bit. Are these two versions of your identity the right ones to help you promote your business? Well, yes and no.

Business or Pleasure? Once you make the decision that you are going to use social media as a marketing tool for your organization, you have just raised the stakes and moved from personal dabbling to professional use and you are now going to have to be more disciplined about the identity you project.

Define Your Personal Brand: If you are beginning to use social media as a marketing tool for yourself or your firm, it’s time to ask yourself “what is my personal brand position?” For example, if you are an attorney, you may be selling knowledge and competence. If you run a catering business, you may be offering style and taste. And if you are the president of a business, you may be known for vision and leadership. How do you project and reinforce your identity?

Target Your Communication by Audience: Where are the best places to build awareness of your identity and how should you communicate within each channel? Here are a few to consider.

• Twitter offers you an opportunity to become a part of a community of people who are talking about issues that interest you. You may follow someone because they provide interesting points of view in your field. They will want to follow you for the same reason – not because they care about the last cup of coffee you drank. So stick to tweets that are relevant to your field. 
• LinkedIn places you in a community of professionals who want to network with other professionals. If LinkedIn were a place, you’d want to dress up a bit before going there. Make sure that past experiences you feature there relate to the current area you’re promoting.
• Facebook is a casual place where you meet friends. You may decide to keep this channel separate from the ones where you talk business. That makes sense, but even if you do, remember that everything you say online may be found by others later – and not just by friends.

Reinforce Your Brand: Once you define your personal brand, be consistent in portraying and reinforcing that position wherever you are online. This does not mean that you do not assume variations on your personality in different online venues (just like you do in real life), but it does mean that all of those personalities should reinforce, or at the very least, not contradict, the personal brand position that you have established. Where this can be most difficult is on Facebook, where many of us mix business and personal contacts and conversations.

Related to Facebook, here are some rules I follow:

• I do mix business and personal contacts on Facebook because some clients and coworkers are friends.
• I do feed my blog posts to Facebook. It’s a way of extending my personal brand there, and I have friends on Facebook who might be interested.
• While I do have fun, casual conversations about frivolous stuff, I do not say anything that I would not want a client, or my children for that matter, to read.

So who are you really online? You are a combination of the person who shares part of their personal life through Facebook and the competent professional who Tweets about industry trends. From a marketing standpoint, both parts of your personality are valuable because these multiple versions of your identity provide a fuller picture of who you are than any press release used to do. Prospective customers may want to know you – not just how you appear in meetings, but also what you do on weekends. Just remember though, in the world of social media, the distance between your personal and business identities is only one click.