Facebook Profiles – Mixing Business and Pleasure

We mentioned that we would be profiling some of the best work of our Marketing Master Class members on our blog. Each month we focus on a single marketing tool or technique.  The topic for January was Facebook, and the class provided a great opportunity for many of our class members to collaborate on some projects.

ABCI client Taylor Greenwood has taught us a lot about Facebook.

One of the biggest challenges people have how to balance their business use of Facebook with keeping in touch with family and friends.

Taylor is in his twenties, so maybe this comes more naturally for people who grew up with the Internet.

In any case, Taylor has two Facebook profiles – one for his personal updates and one for his work as an aviation photographer.

His professional page  (sometimes called a “fan page”) for Taylor Greenwood Aviation Photography, showcases his work with posts like this:

While Taylor’s personal page shows his personality and shares his thoughts and other interests with friends and family.  We know from his personal page that Taylor is into music, goes bowling with friends, and a few other facts that give us some insight into his personality.

I would contend that these profiles both support Taylor’s business – here’s how:

• I can look at a nice portfolio of his work using the “Photos” tab on his professional page.
• He publishes some details about his schedule, so I know some of the locations and airports he uses for aircraft photo shoots.
• He (wisely) shows some testimonials from customers on his company Facebook page.
• I can see that he has relationships with many of the industry players.
• We like to know a little bit about people before we do business with them. Taylor’s Facebook presence gives me enough information to know that he’s smart, funny, and has good relationships with his friends. I would be comfortable spending the day with him on a photo shoot because I know there are some topics he’s interested in that we could have a conversation about.
• There are two groups of people that Taylor is interested in interacting with – his friends and family; and professional contacts (aircraft brokers, dealers and owners.)  Taylor has 966 “friends” on his personal page, while 379 people have “liked” his professional page. There is some overlap between these groups of people; (as there is for most of us between our personal and professional life) but for the most part, the separation ensures that his personal and professional contacts are finding what they want to see. (Note – you can also select what people in different groups or categories are able to see from the privacy settings. I’m skeptical of privacy settings, myself, and always assume that anything on Facebook has a chance of being seen by anyone at any time. )
• I haven’t ever seen Taylor publish anything controversial or objectionable on either of his pages.
• Taylor makes good use of the media and features of Facebook, including this “behind the scenes” video of a photo shoot.

Note- Video is the topic for February, so if you’re in the class, dust off your video camera or dig out those PowerPoint sales presentations. We’ll be putting together some great marketing materials that take advantage of the medium.

Not yet enrolled in the MasterClass?  Take control of your marketing results and enroll now!

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