So I got into a debate with a friend of mine over mixing business with friendship through social media… Quite frankly, should you mix business with friendship at all? Many people have a real challenge with this. I never understand why. I find it so strange that people have multiple personalities.. one for business and one for friendship. It’s almost as if you have a green light to be an asshole, if you cloak it under the guise of “it’s business.”
Look, I run a business, in fact I run several of them. From time to time I have to make “business decisions.” They are always made with intelligence, heart and integrity. People have an obligation to be themselves. One should conduct themselves as themselves – always. I don’t have”business Eric” and “friend Eric”… there is just “Eric!” It must be really hard for many of you out there to manage all of your personalities! I really think that one should be themself and if people don’t resonate with you, then they likely won’t be a good client (or business associate) for you anyways!
I know many people don’t like to mix business and pleasure. In business, you make “sales,” by having people… “know, like and trust you.” Isn’t that what friendship is? Why don’t people just do good business and not be so concerned about mixing the two. If people start to do their job and make money by helping people, instead of making money by screwing people, they wouldn’t be so concerned about mixing the two. I remember a quote from Alan Shore on Boston Legal, “All it takes for evil to succeed is for good people to say it’s a business.”
Now as far as mixing business and friendship on your social media sites… well, it really depends on how you do it! I don’t think it’s completely inappropriate to intermingle business and friendship on your social media sites… that being said, it depends on how you do it. Perry Belcher has a great analogy to a party; he basically says that if you march around a party and all you talk about is your “business opportunity,” you may as well put a name tag on that says “ASSHOLE!” He is right on the money. The same goes true for the guy that marches around the business networking meeting shoving his business card in everyone’s hand. The fact is there are jackasses in every industry… there are jerks in real estate, insurance, auto sales, mortgages – there certainly jerk lawyers and doctors and the list goes on! They are the guys that the jokes are made from…
If you are going to plaster your Facebook page with ads for your MLM or worse… on other people’s pages, that’s a little much! If you are, who Randy Gage calls a “Multi-Level Moron” who spams Twitter with your “click here now opportunity,” well, enough is enough already! It’s no wonder people are pissed off and blasting the whole industry!
Unfortunately, the true professionals are being judged by the actions of these obnoxious jerk-holes! However… for the rest of us, who value our friendships, and are looking to grow our businesses as well as help others… You have every business and every right to utilize social media to grow your business. We are moving into a world where you are your business! Soon the people who separate themselves from their business will realize how easy it is to lose their business. People do business with people, not businesses. You are the only you!
I agree with much of what you are saying here. I also recognize why some people have what you seem to think is a multiple personality disorder. I am one person who does not like to mix personal and business. I actually tried it once with very mixed results. Many of us like to leave work at the office and enjoy our social and family life free of the pressures and decisions business brings.
Many professionals speak about this as a work life balance. For example, if I am an insurance broker and love what I do because I provide a valuable and necessary service to people; it does not mean I want to take a claim call on a Saturday while having dinner with my family. I would also not want one of my Facebook friends who might also be an insurance client leaving a question about their policy on my wall.
Since Social media is such a new space for us all to play in I believe their will be much to learn for all parties as it evolves. Business (sales especially) will have to pay close attention to who they market themselves.
So here are my thoughts about what I like and again, these are just my opinions. I think sites like Linkedin, Ning, and blogs like this are excellent places for business. Facebook and myspace (for the younglings) is more for personal use. I do, however, think a Facebook fan page is a good and appropriate marketing tool.
Remember, Social media is media. It’s media where the audience also creates the content. This is where it can be confusing. I recommend thinking about it like your cable channel line up where you can make you own shows. Would you show your sit-com on CNN? Would you put a kid’s show on Cinemax at midnight. Probably not. In other words, Social Media is a not a free for all it does have some commonly excepted practices even thought it is changing every day. A Facebook fan page is like a commercial you can and should insert anywhere because now you friends will have the option of becoming a fan or not.
Twitter is a great example of why this space can be confusing for a new comer. It started as a place to keep up with what your friends are doing (by the minute in some cases.) Later, business’ got involved as a marketing tool and then the news media used it gather and report information about the Iranian elections. My opinion is that it has not matured and it is an anything goes space for business and friends to mingle until such times as it has matured life Facebook and Linkedin has for personal and business respectively.
Thanks for bringing up the subject and letting me are my opinions. I am curios as to what others think too?
Or course, we are in complete agreement on the fact that if you make money by screwing people over then you are not only a lousy sales person but a low life too.
Eric…
I had never looked at it this way. You make a very powerful point.
It’s sad that 9 times out of 10 mixing biz with pleasure is a deadly cocktail. I have been a victim of it myself.
The world would be a different place if they shared your point of view.
By the way, I love Alan Shore… Great actor!
Terry
I prefer to not do business anywhere.
I just like doing “Stuff”, and my friends can do it with me, or if someone’s not my friend, maybe we will be if we do “stuff” together.
In fact, I’ve met MOST of my friends because we were doing “stuff” together- I met my wife dong “stuff”, and now I wish we were doing more “stuff” together!