How To Use & Abuse Social Media Effectively

Socially media is a weird place for the etiquette-minded, especially for the businessperson. The problem is that people like to use social media for a variety of different reasons, such as keeping in touch with family and friends, keeping up with what others are doing, and even doing some basic business. Complicating the issue is that people do all of this on the same account, meaning that a small businessperson needs to be aware that any post can be read by a potential customer or client; this is even more interesting if you are a person whose personality is part of their marketing.

It's important then that you know how to run your social media for the best possible effect. Fortunately, it's not that hard to figure out.

Personal vs. Fan vs. Business Accounts

There are three different types of accounts that you need to worry about: personal, fan, and business. Obviously, your "personal" page is yours, the one you use for friends, family, and such; if you're trying to keep some semblance of privacy for just family and close friends, then you'll want to have a personal page. "Fan" pages are for, well, pretty much everyone else; this allows you to get information out to your fans, show them fan-only content (like character designs, alternate book covers, and even memes.

Business accounts are for your business. Some authors just like to be a bit more official than others, so they run business pages. This is basically a fan page but without the fun, and that shouldn't be considered an issue. This means that you'll have all of the information, videos, and other promotional materials a fan page has, but none of the memes or other silliness. If the fan page is the fun uncle, this is the stern one, and for those looking to be seen as more professional, this is a good solution.

[For Facebook, replace "account" with "page.", and be aware that you can manage all of your pages from one account, so you don't need to create different accounts for each of the different types. This makes management a lot easier. However, unlike the others you need to decide if you're going to let other people post on your pages or not. If the page is limited to putting out information and fan goodies, then you'll want to discourage posting, but if you're trying to encourage discussion, asking questions or for help, or posting ads for their stuff, then encourage it.]

So, which should you use? First, don't assume you can only use one. As noted above, most people will have a personal page to maintain some semblance of privacy. Others will ignore that and go straight to the fan page, while some will have a business page to separate their books from their personal stuff. If you're "wild and wacky" or "controversial", you'll want two different pages so that you can do whatever you want on one page and the other is more like what people expect from an author.

You need to work from a simple triangle: privacy, business, and fan relationships. As usual, you can excel at two and ignore the third OR do all three okay. With privacy, you can either have some or have none' this also protects your family from stalkers and worse. You can choose to keep our business completely separate, integrate it fully, or do a little bit of both. Lastly, fan relationships allow you to develop relationships with fans and/or keep your personality separate from your business, at least somewhat.

[Personally, I use a fan page and a business page on Facebook. This allows me to have some fun while keeping my books, podcasts, and other issues separate, as well as allowing people a chance to post information on their comics and crowdfunders. I don't have a personal page since it just doesn't work for me. In terms of the triangle, I'm not worried about privacy as my family doesn't do much social media, while I post some of my business links on my page, it's not the focus, and I like being able to go a bit crazy but have a serious side. So I keep a fan page and a business page, but not a private one.]

Posting Type

This is pretty simple: Personal accounts are for whatever you want to share between you and your friends and family. Business accounts are for all business-related postings, like new books coming out, sales, and anything related to the business. Fan accounts allow you to post pretty much anything you want, but try to keep in mind community standards and the crowd.

No one can really dictate what you post on a personal page beyond the rules of the platform you're using, so feel free to cater to the tastes of your friends and family, but try to keep in mind triggers and that younger eyes may catch a glimpse of what you're posting. Business pages need to be kept as G-rated as possible; even if links to decidedly adult material, you need to do so in as vanilla a manner as possible. While family and friends may know you and even expect some blue material, the second audience is a decidedly more somber crowd that you are looking to impress, possibly even doing business with so you need to mind your manners a bit more.

Fans are expecting your personality to shine through, so you can get away with anything provided it matches your persona: You wouldn't expect to see ads for Tarantino movies on a page run by Mr. Rogers just as home-decorating tips would be weird on a Rob Zombie page. The fan page is where you get to have some fun, but try to keep it on target, however wide that target is (on my page, you can find writing tips/tricks, stuff that annoys/amuses me (usually, but not limited to, gaming, film, science fiction, comic books, and the foibles of pop culture), and the occasional political post, but it's my page and I'll post what I want to). Manage audience expectations and you should do fine.

Posting Frequency

This is the fun one. Facebook has pointed out that only 7% of your posts will be seen by all of your friends and followers; if the same holds true for other platforms, then it means that you need to either post a lot or post some really good stuff. However, you also need to balance in that you don't want to overwhelm your friends and followers; it's easy to drown everything else on someone's timeline if you don't throw in some sort of limiter. So you're going to need to figure out where that balance is yourself or you're going to find your account getting sleeped (if not outright unfollowed or, worse, blocked).

[For what it's worth, I post about 2–3 times an hour, or about 20–30 times a day, including reposts but not including birthday salutations. It may sound like a lot, but the weirdness and variety make up for it.]

Using social media can be an effective way of getting out the message. But you need to remember that you need to have some sort of value for those reading your posts, be it relevant information, something entertaining, or generally useful for others to pay attention to you; the moment you stop doing that is the moment that people stop listening to you and your posts are just words on the aether.