Is Personal Personal and Business Business

Once upon a time there was a wonderful business owner who received a negative review on their business Facebook page. This business owner has a wonderful popular business, is well liked by customers and the broader community and has a great reputation. Like all businesses, sometimes things happen and on this occasion the customer took to facebook to express their view. Said business owner, quite gutted by the review responded politely, courteously and professionally offering options to the reviewer to endeavour to turn their experience and view into a positive. (So far doing all the right things we business owners are advised to do in these situations).

But alas, the business owners’ loving and loyal friends and followers decided this was not enough but rather they wished to weigh in on the situation in support of said business owner. (OK – this is lovely). The first few comments were most professional, sympathetic to both sides and imploring the reviewer to discuss the options offered and realise this was not the usual experience with this business. Alas, from there, things took what can only be described as a downward spiral in comments – sentiment, tone, language, pictures – you name it.

Yes – this is not a fairy tale – this really happened to a friend of mine. Although there are a number of issues that can be written about from this scenario (which may happen at a later date), what stood out for me was the number of business owners who wrote (downward spiralling) comments via their personal account.

This started me thinking about the relationship between business owners’ personal social media pages and their business pages. I asked the savvy business owners in the Albany Creek Business Contacts Group to share with me their thoughts on, when it comes to social media, is personal personal and business business?

In a nutshell – NO! Discussion revealed that, like all other awareness we have in relation to brand/profile of our business, social media is included. Put beautifully by Sandy Gilliman (Streten Mason Lawyers), “ïf you are in business and professional, then you are ‘public front’ both on business and personal pages – nothing is private”. In other words, if in business you always need to conduct yourself in a professional manner projecting the image you want for your business. Andrew Gallagher (Lollyworld) added “be prepared for any implications of posts both personal and business if you are going to be on social media”.

As Damien Jenkins (Australian Unity, North Lakes) put it, “a business owner is never professionally off duty”.

This has become even more important since the introduction of “Groups” on facebook, Linkedin and other social media platforms. You can, usually, only join a group via your personal account, so all interaction in that “Group” is done as you personally. As a business owner, most of the groups I am connected with are business groups so my conduct “personally” is out there in these forums.

I think Jason Matthey (Insurance Web, Brendale) was inspiring with his final comment, “when I am posting on social media, whether personally or representing my business, I think – I’m writing to the local newspaper and I want it on the front page – so I measure my posts against whether I think this is something I want appearing on the front page of the paper.”

Albany Creek Business Contacts consists of local quality and reliable businesses who provide a wide range of services from home and residential services to B2B and commercial services. Our service areas cover primarily Albany Creek, Eatons Hill, Brendale, Aspley, Warner, Chermside, Strathpine, North Lakes. However many members will cover greater areas.

Albany Creek Business Contacts meet fortnightly on a Wednesday morning for a 7am breakfast and networking meeting.

Balanix Solutions – Accountant, Business Advisor, Bookkeeping.

Situated in Strathpine on Brisbane North, we partner with our clients to assist them in their accounting, business management and bookkeeping needs. Our clients vary in industries from professional services (such as law, vet and dentist) to the trades (mechanic, bricklaying, plasterer etc), hospitality and retail. Are clients are located in the Pine Rivers area (including Brendale, Lawnton, Albany Creek and Eatons Hill) through to Kallangur, Petrie, North Lakes and Caboolture, as well as Brisbane South, the Gold Coast and various other parts of Queensland.

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