Beyond the Basics: Use Your Personal Social Networks to Help Yourself, Your Company, and Your Clients

Jennifer Mulligan

You know how to tweet, you are connected to all your co-workers and tagging doesn't faze you. You’re ready to take your social media skills up a notch. Here are some quick tips for using social media to help yourself, company and clients.

Help Yourself:

• It’s ok to be human. You don’t have to be professional 24/7. It’s perfectly fine to share a recent client placement and that you’re tailgating this weekend. Remember that the people reading your posts are human too.

• With that said, you should maintain some sort of filter for what you post. As a general rule, if you don’t want it as a giant billboard in Times Square, you don’t want it on social media.

• Be positive. Sure you had a rough meeting with a client, but Facebook is not the place to vent about them. It’s possible that your negativity will get back to the client or a future employer.
• The big question that confuses everyone new to the workforce. Should I send friend requests to my co-workers? These are my guidelines:
  • Facebook: friend anyone you know personally. If you’re friends with your co-workers, go ahead and friend them.
  • LinkedIn: anyone you know professionally. If you would hand this person your business card, you should connect with them on LinkedIn.
  • Twitter: anyone you want to know. If you’d like to have a conversation with them, follow them.

Help Your Company:

• Whether in your bio or posts, include your position at your company. It’s ethical and shows that a cool person like you works at that company.
• Share their news and events with your networks. Post your company’s kickball team picture to Facebook and share the news that your office is one of the best places to work. You are your company’s best brand advocate.

• Engage with their posts. When you like, comment, or share their posts, their news spreads to your network. The more people who see a post, the better.

• Be active in LinkedIn groups relevant to your practice area. If your clients are technology companies, you should be active in group discussions related to technology. It gives you and your firm credibility. You might even meet your next client on LinkedIn.
• Tell your company’s social media manager if you see something that the company should know about.

Help Your Clients:

• Share your clients’ posts. You should be following your clients on Twitter, and you should retweet their posts occasionally to maintain good client relationships.
• Post placements and events about your client. You got a placement in a top-tier publication for your client? Awesome! You should tweet it, and don’t forget to tag your client.