Jos Vennik

Another interesting situation can arise when a company implements Social Media: the individuals involved the most with Social Media (who can become very passionate about sharing knowledge and ultimately promoting their brand), will end up in a situation where their professional life will have a greater impact on their personal life.

This poses an interesting question, due to the fact that the doors of Social Media do not close at 5 o clock. Does it imply that a company should only engage in Social Media during working hours? Social Media is a continuous process that does not ‘take a break’. While the individuals working with Social Media may not perform their actual duties, they will be able to continue sharing interesting things they encounter during their non-working hours.

Active Social Media users do not ‘disconnect’ over the weekend; it is part of their routine to share and assist people via Social Media. What kind of effect does this have on people who utilize Social Media for a living? It simply remains to be a way to share knowledge and information that you would otherwise share as well.

When the motivation is present and is tied to a person’s life in such a way that it becomes normal to interact in such a fashion, it can be assumed that the individual’s work and leisure can begin to merge. If situations like these become the de facto standard for professionals, how will this affect the general business ethic?

When looking into the balancing act between the personal and the professional, we need to consider the following: Social Media is based upon showing your real self, as well as generating chemistry with your friends/clients. A situation like this assumes that in turn, people will become interested if you have something relevant to say.

When examining ourselves, we already fulfill many other roles in our social lives, roles that affect one another and our professional lives. However, these situations do not apply to everyone, due to the fact that Social Media is not used by every individual to pursue marketing success for his or her company.

The factors affecting this balance are extremely variable and dependant on the culture of the company implementing Social Media in their workflow.

However, looking at it from the opposite side: what if our personal and professional lives are becoming one and the same? Where does this leave professionalism? An individual will react differently to negative feedback from a professional standpoint than to negative feedback from a personal standpoint.

In a third kind of scenario, a company could have both of these positions integrate, based on the fact that the individual implementing the Social Media techniques is the same person at work and at home. The only change that occurs is the change in emphasis during conversation, which is tailored to what is appropriate for the situation at hand.

This does not differ at all when we look at our daily interactions, considering family, friends, co-workers. We all act differently depending on the group we are currently engaging with. Creating the integration between the personal and professional would seem to be no different to the practices we employ in our various other social circles.

This is also where a Social Media policy can clarify purpose and intent for anyone doubting what stance to take. Furthermore, we must remember that anything that we post can be seen by the world. Keeping this in mind, in combination with a common sense to dictate our decisions regarding what to post, we should have a baseline from which we can begin to build a more comprehensive implementation of Social Media in our businesses.