Or better named: Why I avoided joining Facebook in the beginning.
When I started my social media strategy (blogging, twitter, linkedin, etc) almost a year and a half ago, I avoided adding facebook into the mix. It wasn’t until about 8 months ago that I finally became part of it.
Why?
Because none of my real friends were on twitter or linkedin, and definitely none of them read my blog. It was mine, my business tools, my networking tools, it was my little world. And I liked it that way. I could write about business, connect with like minded individuals and there was no preconceived notions because they knew me already. I didn’t have to worry about it getting to personal – I could control what the business people knew about me. Basically, I avoided adding facebook because I didn’t want my real friends combined with my business connections, nor did I want my real friends to be getting my blog posts or business promotion. I wanted to know that at the end of the day, I could sign off of the “business” and just talk normal life with my friends. Actually, most of my friends didn’t even know I had a blog or what I did for work other than I was in “marketing or something”.
But then a funny thing happened…some of my social media connections became real life friends. I started getting coffee with them and learning about their lives. We had 3 hour lunches talking about everything from business to husbands and family. I attended tweetups and had a lot of fun. I joined a blog crush group, and seriously, those bloggers rock! I’ve recently joined the OCGood group, which should be another great connection to incredible people. I figured out that I really liked these people and wanted to be able to learn more about there personal lives, and of course, almost all of them were on Facebook and wanted to connect.
So I finally gave in and created a Facebook account.
Like I suspected, pretty quickly all my real friends found me and were excited to be able to send me messages/tag photos etc. Which was a slight problem. See, I enjoy going out. I enjoy a glass (or 4) of wine on the weekends. And sometimes, I don’t really want those pictures to be shared. But then I realized something, the more I did share those photos, of me just being me, the stronger that my blog readers and my social media connections became. People want to connect with real people. And because the service that I offer is so individual, people want to know who I am, what I am about and who they will be working with before they contact me.
What I learned was that by connecting my business life and my real life, my friends understand me better and my clients trust me more.
Do you combine business and real life? What have you discovered about it? Or if you don’t…why not?
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