The college days
I was first introduced to the power of Facebook during my junior year of college. I remember it like it was just yesterday. My friend came running down the hall saying “I just got Facebook for our school.” Of course my first question was “what the heck is Facebook”? He explained it to me and forced me to view the website on his computer. I completely blew it off and he tried to recruit many other friends in the dormitory to very little success. It wasn’t until the middle of the semester when many of us had very little work and a lot of time on our hands. We decided to enroll in Facebook and see how it would make our social lives easier. One year later, as a senior in college, students were using it to communicate with high school friends and also created events that others could sign up for on campus. In general, Facebook was simple and effective, with very little clutter and with the ability to catalog photo’s from social events the night before.
Welcome to the business world!
If you had told me that Facebook would be for organizing, collecting and connecting with professionals, I would have laughed in college. Facebook was branded and positioned as a tool for college students to keep in touch. A lot has changed since then, as Facebook has opened up their platform to the world (yes high school students and 80 year olds can even sign up). They have even allowed users to develop their own applications within Facebook, how clever. There are now thousands of widgets handpicked and placed on different profile pages. Professionals are now leveraging the platform to build their client database and reach new customers.
Now for the issues
Facebook is a place for your professional and personal lives now. It has evolved and broadened it’s audience, to increase the installed base. For college students that used Facebook pre-business days, our concerns are real. How would you like it if you established a social “friend” network and then had your manager and advertisers adding you as a friend and sending you messages? What about the fact that instead of “light” pages, there were numerous widgets all over, cluttering the page? Yes, for those who are just starting out, you weren’t there when Facebook was simple and social. Of course as an entrepreneur who was just introduced to the platform, you will use it for business, but for the original college students, there are issues. We are also in a position, where we are forced to set privacy preferences because we don’t want business contacts to see our social life. I see this as both a threat and an opportunity.
Your turn
- Do you feel that both parts of your life have been integrated and exposed through social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Myspace?
- If yes, what strategies do you have in place to counter this exposure?
- If no, do you think it’s beneficial to match your personal and professional life to establish one consistent personal brand?
