The new normal for new business integrates your personal life and your work life.
If you really want to generate new business through social media – get personal. Learn to use social media to humanize your agency. It’s the secret sauce that most agencies have neglected.
Because of technology and social media, the line between your personal and professional life has blurred.
Social media is all about people connecting with other people. When I’m helping agency owners to integrate their personal social media accounts into their new business program, I often get push back, especially if they’re boomers. They aren’t prepared for this shift in blending their personal life with their work life.
People don’t hire agencies, they hire people. The person behind the agency. It’s important to find ways to show your personal side. A lot of agency principals have a difficult time doing that.
PEOPLE want to work with other PEOPLE that they know, trust and like.
Connecting and sharing online with others is important to building and maintaining relationships with prospects. In my opinion, the most personal social media platform is Facebook. It’s extremely effective in creating an emotional connection to prospective clients.
A Facebook Page is available to businesses. I believe that it’s important for every agency to have a professional Facebook business page that builds awareness for its brand. But it’s going to be limited in its ability to make a personal connection with followers and fans.
A Facebook Profile Page is for individual users, which allow people to connect with you as a friend or follower. Though it’s against Facebook’s usage guidelines to use your personal account to promote your agency, it doesn’t prevent you from building relationships and interacting with prospective clients on a personal level.
Through your Facebook Profile Page, you share personal updates that are a mixture of your personal and professional life.
Here are some suggestions:
- Photos of you, your family, pets, business travel, vacations, etc.
- Videos of your activities, inspirational or humorous videos, educational or training videos
- Inspirational quotes or statistics
- Post links and your comments to relevant articles written by others
- Post links to your own content
- Industry news and event updates
- Wish friends a Happy Birthday or congratulate them on their anniversary, birth of a child, etc.
- Comment on the public updates shared by others or send them a private message
- Announcements
- News
- Your status, what you are doing
- Advice
- Entertainment
Instead of random Facebook updates, put a plan in place. When sharing to a mixed audience on Facebook, it should be a little bit of business and a lot more of the personal side of who you are.
Personalization is a strong differentiator, but it will require an entirely different approach to marketing through your personal account.
Click on the following link if you’d like to connect with me on Facebook.
If you are new to Facebook, I’ve put together some resources to help you get started.
- Tutorial: How to Create a Facebook Profile
- Facebook 101 for Business: Your Complete Guide
- How to protect your privacy on Facebook
- The Secret Psychology of Facebook: Why We Like, Share, Comment and Keep Coming Back
- New York Times Study: The Psychology of Sharing
- The Art of Writing Great Facebook Status Updates
Additional articles that may be of interest: