I was invited to speak at the Sweet Art Bake Conference. My topic was “The Effect Of Social Media on Personal and Professional Brands.” There are so many professional brands that are utilising social media platforms as their exclusive sites for their brand awareness and sales but so often they aren’t maximising their opportunities. In fact, some frustrate consumers and make it very easy for competitors to build better communities. It doesn’t matter how amazing your product or service is, if you aren’t leveraging the power of social media, you are losing sales. I have looked at business pages across various industries and these are the common mistakes made by most professional brands.
1. Personal vs Professional Pages
There is nothing wrong with having a personal/private page separate from a professional one but don’t get it twisted, customers don’t just do business with brands anymore, they want to know who is behind the brands and they want to get a sense of what the person (CEO, M.D., Chairman down to the line staff) stands for personally. Do not treat your pages as if they do not affect each other. It only takes one wrong post on a private page to ruin the professional side. Therefore remember that personal views (whether political, social, racial, gender etc.) on private pages will be measured against the company’s values. Once there is an association with the company brand, you both are always on show and as such, whether private or profession, the two must speak the same brand language.
