AP 0652: How Do I Keep Work and Personal Separate on Facebook?

AskPat 652 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: What's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to AskPat Episode 652. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions five days a week.

We have an awesome question today from Chris, but before we get to that I do wanna thank and tell you about our sponsor today which is, Design Crowd, which helps entrepreneurs and small businesses outsource or what's called “crowd source” custom graphics, logos, web-designs. All that kind of stuff from designers all around the world. They have more than a half-million designers from over a hundred different countries, ready, to help you with any creative and design projects you might have. So, if you want to check out designcrowd.com just head on over there. Actually, designcrowd.com/askpat is where you wanna go for a special VIP offer. So again, check 'em out. Learn more at designcrowd.com/askpat.

Sweet. Now here's today's question from Chris.

Chris: Hi, Pat. My name is Chris Alais, and I have a blog called T-shirt Design Coach and tshirtdesigncoach.com. And my question is about Facebook. How would you go about managing your friends and family compared to your business associates and your audience? Would you create a separate business account or would you manage it all in one account? And how would you go about it? Hope to hear from you soon and just wanna say thank you again for all the valuable information you provide for us. Thank you.

Pat Flynn: Hey, Chris. What's up? Thank you so much for the question. I appreciate you calling in, and this is a big question because a lot of people have this same question too. And for me, the way I do it, is my Facebook personal account is just for my friends and family. My Facebook page is simply for my business. And I've been able to separate that pretty well, all though I will say there is a ton of people who have been requesting me as a friend on my personal page, who are not my immediate friends and family. They've just found me through search, or what have you. And are trying to become friends with me that way, and I just typically decline, not to be mean or anything, but I'm trying really hard to separate my friends and family account with my business account.

Now, that being said, I do know a lot of people, especially personal brands, who have their personal account be just there one account for all things; friends, family, and audience. Now I will say that some people who are you friends or family might not care about all the post that are there about your business. And you know what, I feel like if you wanna go down that route and have it all in one place because you wanna be the center of the brand, I mean, that's the big thing. If you wanna be the name of your brand and that's your thing, then put it all in one account. It's just a lot easier to do that.

For me, if I was to go back, I'd probably do that again because and do it that way. Just have it all under one account because as most of you know who have been following Smart Passive Income, you know Smart Passive Income with Pat Flynn is essentially just Pat Flynn. And you know, yes, the brand name is Smart Passive Income, but it's been difficult to manage the Facebook page because it's a page, and business pages don't get a lot of reach and there's been news that Facebook that they're hardly going to get any reach at all unless you pay of course. And we've seen this trend already. So that's why I would go that way.

Another thing you could do which is another option you didn't mention is having like a Facebook group. So specifically for people who are following your t-shirt stuff, you could have a Facebook group. Which just lends a little bit more to the community aspect of it, and that's more of a community as opposed to you again being the sort of the face of the brand, so. Like I said earlier, if you are the face of the brand, and you are comfortable with that, and that's okay that everybody knows that, then you'd have one account and that's your thing that you'd be known for. And everything would be there; your friends, family, audience. And I say if your friends and family aren't interested in that, well then that's I mean, it's Facebook, and they have an option of you know, silencing you there. And that's that, so.

Again, it's up to you and how you feel. I think a lot of people have some strong opinions about this. It's not anything that's a big deal to me. That's why I say, just pick and choose whatever feels comfortable for you, and if you're worried about your friends and family seeing your other stuff, then yeah, separate it. And if you're not, don't worry about it. So again, I would just make sure that you let your family and friends know if you are going to go that one-and-all route. That those things are coming so that you can just at least let them know. And of course when people stop interacting or if they don't participate or engage in the conversations, then they're not gonna see your posts anyway. That's how Facebook's algorithm works. And that's that.

So Chris, that's my opinion, and I hope that helps you at least gets your gears going for what you can do. If anybody else has any comments about this, feel free to leave a tweet about it. Hashtag #AskPat652, maybe Chris will be following that, and I'll be following it just to see what you think about that. Again, to each their own for sure. I don't think one is better than the other. Just make sure that you are clear and not mixed in which one is best because if you have both, but treat one differently than the other one, then it's kind of half and half on each in terms of where your engagement for your business is, well then you're not gonna see any results. But you can have that one page for your business whether it's a page that you create separately from your friends and family or one that includes that. And you can completely own it and be that sort of trusted advisor, that celebrity that they would all know.

So again, Chris, up to you, and I wish you all the best. Thanks so much, everybody. I appreciate you, and Chris, we're going to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show. And for those of you listening, if you have a question you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to askpat.com and you can ask right there on that page.

Thanks so much. I appreciate you, and here's a quote from Christine Korda to finish off the day. She said, “This is a learning process, and sometimes you have to fall in order to learn things.” And I absolutely agree with that. Thanks so much, everybody. I appreciate you, and I look forward to serving you in tomorrow's episode of AskPat. Bye now.