Forgive me internet, for I have sinned. It has been over a month since my last posting. I have traveled to India on vacation and unplugged, I have started a new job in NYC, and I have been apartment searching. All of these topics and more will be blogged about in the near future but there is a topic so pressing it had to come first, and it could not wait.
We talk an awful lot about privacy. As professionals we discuss how what we post and where can be seen as representations of ourselves and how hiring managers and coworkers may judge us. As a community manager I must go one step past that and operate official pages and platforms on behalf of a company. The responsibility in that is a public one that I can't afford to mess up with an off color post or an inappropriate picture. So I behave.
I lock up my personal Facebook profile so it can't be found by doing a search. I close it off to non-friends. I only accept the friend requests of those I know or have built a decent online relationship with professionally. I make sure not to post negative things about those I know or about a bad day at work.
Is it a matter of privacy, or a matter of conflicting usage?
I joined facebook in May 2004. I was a 21 year old graduate of Syracuse University that was about to take a job working in New York City for the hottest musicians in the world at the world's foremost entertainment agency. To say that I took a lot of stupid pictures in my early 20s is an understatement.
However, over the last 7 years, I have created a community on Facebook that's my very own. It's a strong network of in real life friends and family that do what friends and family do, they post a lot of inside jokes. They post a lot of angry things about sports and the schools/teams that our favorites play against. They post a few off color remarks that I find funny because I know who they are, and how they mean it. We all blow off steam. We post about touchy subjects like politics and religion and debates happen frequently. They post swear words and risky video clips and random cartoons. Even now in my late 20s we still go out and drink and take dumb pictures and post them on Facebook so we can all make our hilariously immature comments.
How do you censor personal community?
I could hide my pictures and videos from others. I could close my wall to comments. I could delete posts that aren't the most professional. But then where does that leave me? I'm now the moderator of my own life. I'm policing a page I use for fun, and would have then taken all the fun out of it for myself.
Recently I became the admin on a Fan Page. The page is owned and operated by a team, and I am there to act as myself. I use my personal profile to answer questions as the community manager, and not hide behind the logo. Total transperancy - which to me makes perfect sense. As a customer I would always like to know the name and face of the person that's talking to me or helping me.
However, in order for this to work on Facebook this now means Facebook is no longer my little bubble that I've curated over the years for myself. It now opens up the possibility of people in that community friending me and leaving me with the dilemma of blurring the work/life boundary. I love my job, but do I want to take it home with me?
I've been struggling with this thought lately. I'm a community manager. I'm out to build relationships on behalf of the company that I am technically the brand ambassador for. I'm excited to do so, but does that mean I have to open my entire life?
The easiest answer that I've come up with lately is to have two separate profiles on Facebook. A personal profile and a professional profile.
Having a clean slate on the professional profile allows me to separate life and work. It also makes me worry less that my friends will post something that would reflect poorly on me. It allows me to add members of my work community as my friends on Facebook without revealing too much. It also allows me to focus solely on that content that maybe they might be more interested in.
With my new professional profile on Facebook I will still be me. Add a few pictures from vacations. I'll still "Like" things and post it to my profile. I'll add friends as the time goes on and that will include community members. It may be a little more work to manage two pages, but then at least I'll still have my own personal space as the average everyday Facebook user.
What do you think? How do you manage the Facebook duality if you're in charge of Fan Pages and tasked with marketing or community management?
We talk an awful lot about privacy. As professionals we discuss how what we post and where can be seen as representations of ourselves and how hiring managers and coworkers may judge us. As a community manager I must go one step past that and operate official pages and platforms on behalf of a company. The responsibility in that is a public one that I can't afford to mess up with an off color post or an inappropriate picture. So I behave.
I lock up my personal Facebook profile so it can't be found by doing a search. I close it off to non-friends. I only accept the friend requests of those I know or have built a decent online relationship with professionally. I make sure not to post negative things about those I know or about a bad day at work.
Is it a matter of privacy, or a matter of conflicting usage?
I joined facebook in May 2004. I was a 21 year old graduate of Syracuse University that was about to take a job working in New York City for the hottest musicians in the world at the world's foremost entertainment agency. To say that I took a lot of stupid pictures in my early 20s is an understatement.
However, over the last 7 years, I have created a community on Facebook that's my very own. It's a strong network of in real life friends and family that do what friends and family do, they post a lot of inside jokes. They post a lot of angry things about sports and the schools/teams that our favorites play against. They post a few off color remarks that I find funny because I know who they are, and how they mean it. We all blow off steam. We post about touchy subjects like politics and religion and debates happen frequently. They post swear words and risky video clips and random cartoons. Even now in my late 20s we still go out and drink and take dumb pictures and post them on Facebook so we can all make our hilariously immature comments.
How do you censor personal community?
I could hide my pictures and videos from others. I could close my wall to comments. I could delete posts that aren't the most professional. But then where does that leave me? I'm now the moderator of my own life. I'm policing a page I use for fun, and would have then taken all the fun out of it for myself.
Recently I became the admin on a Fan Page. The page is owned and operated by a team, and I am there to act as myself. I use my personal profile to answer questions as the community manager, and not hide behind the logo. Total transperancy - which to me makes perfect sense. As a customer I would always like to know the name and face of the person that's talking to me or helping me.
However, in order for this to work on Facebook this now means Facebook is no longer my little bubble that I've curated over the years for myself. It now opens up the possibility of people in that community friending me and leaving me with the dilemma of blurring the work/life boundary. I love my job, but do I want to take it home with me?
I've been struggling with this thought lately. I'm a community manager. I'm out to build relationships on behalf of the company that I am technically the brand ambassador for. I'm excited to do so, but does that mean I have to open my entire life?
The easiest answer that I've come up with lately is to have two separate profiles on Facebook. A personal profile and a professional profile.
Having a clean slate on the professional profile allows me to separate life and work. It also makes me worry less that my friends will post something that would reflect poorly on me. It allows me to add members of my work community as my friends on Facebook without revealing too much. It also allows me to focus solely on that content that maybe they might be more interested in.
With my new professional profile on Facebook I will still be me. Add a few pictures from vacations. I'll still "Like" things and post it to my profile. I'll add friends as the time goes on and that will include community members. It may be a little more work to manage two pages, but then at least I'll still have my own personal space as the average everyday Facebook user.
What do you think? How do you manage the Facebook duality if you're in charge of Fan Pages and tasked with marketing or community management?