The Perils Of Using Personal Social Media For Self-Promotion - Don't Take It Personal

                                

 

I recently attended a very interesting seminar in which presenters discussed the most effective ways to use social media.

One presenter spoke about how her organization uses analytic tools to determine which posts received the most hits. These tools, such as Facebook's "Insights" tool, can help users to determine if they're reaching their target audience by showing the gender, age, location and other demographics of those who "Like" and "Follow" a page.

I think these tools are fine to use if you're a business, a nonprofit organization or a government agency that must get your message out to certain constituents in order to do your job.

However, using these tools may be problematic if you're an individual. For example, I'm a writer and I sometimes use Facebook to let friends and family know about projects I'm working on, such as a play I recently did that I wanted to invite everyone to. I have other friends who are musicians, visual artists and other creative types who also use Facebook to get the word out about upcoming concerts, exhibits, etc.

But what if I started using Facebook's "Insight" tools to determine which of my posts generated the most interest and started tailoring my posts to subject matter that would get the most hits? While it's okay for a business to use such a strategy to reach customers, I think that seems a bit creepy and manipulative for an individual to do that with friends and family.

Of course, creative types can create professional Facebook fanpages that are designed specifically to reach those who are interested in their work. But unless you're an established public figure with a built-in audience like John Grisham or Tyler Perry, it's hard to segregate your personal and professional lives. When you're a creative type trying to build an audience, oftentimes the first place you start is with friends and family to try to get buzz going. 

To sum up: it's perfectly legitimate for a business or an organization to use tools at their disposal to target customers on social media. But when you're an individual, the personal and professional are often one and the same and using these tools, like Robin Thicke said in his monster hit song, is a blurred line.

This is the first in a series of posts about "The Perils of Using Personal Social Media for Self-Promotion." I'd love to hear your thoughts, and I welcome all comments and questions to this post.

Let's have a dialogue. After all, isn't that what social media is for?