If you use Facebook or Instagram to advertise and sell your services, of course you have already thought about the content of your account. The brand ambassador can be easily found, as a rule, and that means that users can follow them easily. What to do if your account is not completely yours: to produce strictly professional content or post what you want?
Experience shows that perfect accounts which are 100 % filled with professional terms and other useful but boring stuff are not popular and are at the bottom of the news feed. The owners of such accounts often say that social media is a silly thing and you cannot earn on them. So, let’s sympathize and say goodbye to them, and then let’s form a strategy for solving this issue.
A good proportion for an account, which is simultaneously personal and professional is as follows: 80%—professional information, 20% — other topics. For example, other topics can be hobbies, favorite entertainments, leisure activities. The main thing is not to go too far.
Bad ideas
To play with the audience pretending “one of the guys”
In this case, your followers may stop regarding you as a professional, appreciate your advice, and respect your opinion.
For example, you prefer coffee made by the same barista, and suddenly he starts tapping you on the shoulder in a fraternizing manner, making you wait for your order for a long time, or telling you dirty anecdotes. Finally, the barista loses their permanent customer and perhaps even gets a bruise instead of tips.
It is better to keep a short, subtle distance.
To moralize like: “You are all fools, I’ve got things to tell you”
Nobody likes it. Would you like to read such a post yourself? If not, delete what you have written. But the opposite almost always works: ask your followers what they think about this or that. You do not have to agree: it is important that the post will get comments and likes, and you will be considered a tolerant and open-minded person.
To share all your private life secrets with your followers
Live streaming from a karaoke bar at 3 AM obviously will not help you boost your reach. For such things, it is better to create another account available only for your closest friends. Be a moderator yourself and do not hesitate to brush aside all that may do any harm to you and your brand in the public space.
To emulate your colleagues — copy their posting manner and writing style, be afraid of being different
You can show your personality without streaming from a karaoke bar. Write and post everything that is interesting and relevant in your opinion. Just do not forget to check your content before publication. If you understand that it may hurt a certain group of your followers (on the ground of sex, race, appearance, competences and so on), try to rewrite your post the way it would be personal and expressing your individuality, and at the same time as neutral as possible to everybody who will read it. If you doubt, you can always show your new post to your friends first: a fresh look is helpful in this situation more than at any time.
Good ideas
Shorten the distance between you and your customers (current and future ones) a bit: 2-3 times a week make “light” posts with a slight note of something personal. By the way, the following proportion also works — 1 long-form serious post in the morning or afternoon and a short “light” one (stories are perfect) in the evening.
What can it be?
Professional humour. Tell funny stories about your colleagues and job — it relaxes and entertains the audience. Humour amazingly helps in selling.
Photos and videos which show the reverse side of your business. Recently on Facebook one coach has shown how he was live streaming from a hotel using a simple glass instead of a phone stand. And a designer of fashionable anoraks, which look like blankets, posted a photo showing how comfortable it is to sleep on a sintepon roll. People are curious and like “peeking through keyholes”.
Videos of your workouts will be a perfect alternative to your daily posts. We (people) like watching other people do something, especially if they work out hard. Here you can suddenly discover that a part of your customers shares your preferences, and this is a direct way to increase their loyalty.
You do not do any sport? Never mind, you can post about how you spent your weekend and publish to Stories a short video from a concert you visited.
I have no time to read it, can you sum it up?
You can boost your sales and better the ratings of your partly personal partly business account following these three simple rules:
- Changeable but obvious distance: do not post something too private or debatable.
- 80/20 proportion: 80% — professional content, the rest — your hobbies.
- Be yourself, create unique content. Those who are different from others hold the audience’s attention the longest.
