Technology is a wonderful tool to use in the business sector when it comes time to market a product or run an advertising campaign. For the typical small to medium sized business, the average campaign comes from an account that is a blend of a personal account and one that doubles as a business account. However, that should raise a huge red flag for every professional. SMS messages that are about your business should only be sent from a company sponsored post, just as status updates and tweets should only come from official company pages and not an employee or the owner providing them. When the boundary is crossed or blurred between personal and professional accounts without a clear separation, the results can be disastrous.
One Oops and You’re Done
Think back to the news over the past couple of years and recollect the downfall of politicians, celebrities and even a few athletes that have had an ill advised post. They could have lost their job as an elected official, like Andrew Weiner did or they could lose the respect and admiration of their young fans. Those posts were meant to be personal to friends, however they leaked to the public at large and became media nightmares for the person who sent them out – accidentally or not.
The same can happen to a business when an inappropriate post goes out. The post might not be so inappropriate to close personal friends, but when professional posts about a business usually go out and they get mixed up, then it’s oops. Once a post or a picture goes out that wasn’t supposed to, it cannot be pulled back. All it takes is for one careless personal remark to get tied up with a business text and it’s all over. Customers could be turned off and unsubscribe from the SMS service in droves.
Get Away From the Job
Drawing clear lines between the profession and the business is important for a couple of reasons besides just preventing customer loss. First, having separate social media accounts for a business gives it credibility. All of the major social media sites, SMS text services and even emails are free, so why not create separate ones for a business, even if it is small with very little budget for marketing.
Second, having separate accounts allows the owner to get away from business for awhile. There is a lot of stress surrounding running a successful business, and getting away for a few hours a day is important to prevent burnout. After the hours away, the work will seem fresh again and then you will look forward to diving back in to responding to all of the replies and messages received instead of dreading them.
Lastly, when the accounts are clearly separate there is never an accidental post meant to go to a personal account that is broadcasted to customers. It might be a well meaning employee who didn’t realize what they were doing or you were simply too burned out to notice, but it was accidental nonetheless and preventable.
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