Facebook is a wonderful place to make friends and connect with family, customers, prospects and colleagues. How do you communicate with all these people in one place? It can be really fun, but also confusing. Over the past few years, I have learned how important it is to create your brand through Facebook. If you want to use Facebook for business and building your brand, you should think before you post because it may impact people negatively if you are not careful.
Why I choose to mix business with pleasure
When I first started using Facebook, I used to have two accounts. I had one for my personal friends and family. Then, I had another one for clients and business associates. I struggled to keep the two worlds separate. Some of my work friends became close so I added them to my personal group. At times, I couldn’t remember which account I was in and felt like I had a split personality.
Then, one day I had an epiphany. I realized I have become friends with many of my customers and would easily invite these people to something fun like my big 50th birthday bash, so why not have them be my Facebook friends? At the same time, I realized I really loved working with people who appreciated my skills and were fun to work with, so why not work on making sure we worked with people that I would be friends with in real life (IRL)? At that moment, I closed my “work Carrie” Facebook account, merged my friend list and have been growing my friend list ever since.
Get organized with groups
Facebook Groups is one of my favorite features! This allows you to group people that have something in common. You can use the group to host discussions and share content that is relevant to that group. My family and friends do not care about the latest QuickBooks® special. So, I share that type of information only within my groups to let them know the latest prices and product updates.
The same idea works for family events. We have a family group on Facebook, so when I host a family party, I only want to share that with my target audience – in this case, the family I am inviting. Another cool feature is that I can see in the group who has read the post to ensure they all got the details for the party. Last year, my daughter and I went on a mission trip, and we created a group to share our experience with the attendees and the families who were watching from home.
Think of Facebook groups as file folders to keep areas of your life organized. When you think like this, you can effectively communicate within each group and not blow up your regular feed with things that your audience doesn’t care about.
The best part about Facebook? It’s free. Facebook groups are free. Give it a try!
Editor’s Note: Read part 1 of this series to see how you can leverage Facebook to build your brand.
