The Social Media Marketer

Keep Your Business and Personal Life Separate

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With the downturn in the job market, there are many people who are using their skills and talents toward a freelance career. Some are writers, like me, while others are artists, marketing professionals - pretty much any skill can be put profitably to work to make money on the Internet.

Of course, most people who used to work in a bricks-and-mortar building made Facebook and Twitter pages at that time, and have since decided to use those pages to market their at-home endeavors.

There are good points and bad points about that:

The Good:

• You already have a lot of friends and contacts who will see your marketing endeavors.
• Those people also have friends and contacts who will see you.
• You don't have to start marketing from scratch.

• The Bad:
• Strangers will see all the posts you've made to that list of friends and contacts.
• People looking for someone to perform the services you provide will have a hard time finding you.
• You risk alienating the people who you already have on your own profile.

After all, there are many of us who post items on Facebook and Twitter to be funny or to amuse our friends. Do you really want that person who is interested in hiring you as an expert author to see those pictures of you doing tequila shots a couple of weekends ago?

If you plan to use social network marketing sites to promote yourself, play it smart. Create a separate site for your business endeavors. Once that site is created, go ahead and invite your friends and contacts to "friend" or "follow" your new profile. People who are interested will follow you, and those who aren't interested won't.

Then you can use your new profile to show off your business side, and you can work hard to keep it professional to attract your new business contacts. Make sure you watch it diligently, and take off anything anyone might post that isn't flattering to your message. If that means blocking "friends," that's just the risk you take.

This goes for blogs as well. It might take a little more work, but it's much better to have one blog for your professional profile, and a separate one for your personal opinions. Make sure you monitor all comments that come into your professional blog, and you'll have a ready-made site that will showcase your talents quite well.

After all, social marketing isn't just for big business. It's for anyone who uses the capabilities of the Internet toward building their businesses - including freelancers.