Politics, Facebook and Branding
October 22, 2012 | Branding, Social Media
If you’re using Facebook for business, should you keep your political views out of your timeline?
Politics
We are in the home stretch of the 2012 presidential elections. I think we all agree that things could be better with the economy and with the political inactivity in Washington. However, we do not agree on who would be the best candidate to to lead our country for the next four years. This is one of the most divisive times in our history.
This is also a time where some people are using Facebook more and more for business and for connecting with business associates. This includes using one’s personal Facebook account for business (in addition to business pages).
Based on this, I am surprised when people who use Facebook for business connections post political items in their timeline.
Branding
Your decision about what you talk about, and how you express it are both part of your brand. And when you broadcast your political views, you risk alienating your colleagues, clients and prospects.
What do you think?
I invite you to view the above video and provide your feedback in the comments.
Do you use your personal Facebook account to connect with business associates? Do you post any politics-related content to your Facebook personal (or company) page? What do you think when others do this?
3 comments
First off Emily, it’s nice to see a hybrid of text and video in your post!
As for Facebook, the true way to avoid mixing politics and business is to not use Facebook at all, as I do. 🙂 Beyond that, I agree with you that getting an FB friend request after meeting someone at a biz event is odd, and that’s why we have LinkedIn.
Simply liking a candidate should not be the only judge of a person or business. With the simplicity of liking, I bet most people have liked things they would rather not have wish they did months later, or forgot about altogether. I personally do not weigh much on likes or even Twitter follows – for example, I follow both Karl Rove and David Axelrod.
When it comes to posting messages for one candidate or another, people or businesses are free to do so – heck, businesses can even give to candidates now. However, they must realize the potential backlash by someone who doesn’t want to see that at all or is for another candidate. Poster beware!
Of course some people don’t realize this, and your blog post and video should be a good reminder to them.
mp/m
Liking a candidate may not equal voting for him/her. There are people who like to follow politics closely and they may be interested, even if not supportive of a candidate. When I looked at my friends who had liked either Obama or Romney I found 1 who had done both.
I think a lot of this comes back to how much we should be separating our personal and business personas within social media.
I totally agree. If I wanted to be overwhelmed by political posts, I would ‘like’ those pages to stay informed – hopefully getting honest posts and statements that are published by the candidate or a representative of the candidate. It’s not up to friends to continuously post articles and statements – a lot of which are false.. Once in a while, I understand – but some people are obsessed.