A speech given to professionals for Mediabistro on Tuesday, May 1st around Facebook: Separating the personal from the professional best practices and tactics by Social@Ogilvy Vice President Geoffrey Colon. Follow him @djgeoffe

1. Setting Boundaries: Separating the Personal
& The Professional on Your Facebook
Timeline and Brand Page
Presented by Geoffrey Colon, Vice President of Social@Ogilvy

2. Overview
• Why it's important to divide personal and
professional news on your social profiles
• FTC rules on disclosure
• Why your Facebook profile is your social
graph and your brand page an interest graph
– Privacy Settings

3. Overview
• Best practices on when you promote
professional news on your personal profile
• Maxing out: when it's time to defriend on
your personal timeline to enhance your
professional timeline
• Branching out: why Facebook is good for
some things but other social networks are
better for others, Subscribe funictionality
• Questions

4. Why Divide?
• Privacy
• Engagement
• Opportunity
• Relevance

5. Disclosure
• It’s important to disclose at all times
whenever you’re posting about client
work on your personal page
• If you don’t, you’re breaking FTC rules
• Which could result in fines
• And ultimately trouble for your client

6. Disclosure
• Always disclose
that you are
mentioning a
client with a
disclaimer, with
(cl) or with the
word “client” in
a status update

7. Social Graph (Personal) vs.
Interest Graph (Brand)
• • Unlimited “Likes” or Subscribers
5000 friends
• • Professional Content
Personal photos
• • Synchronicity with applications
Only friend people you know
• • Potential to build advocates to
Intimate and social content
leverage for professional reasons
• Professionally relevant content

8. Privacy Settings

9. Privacy Settings

10. Privacy Settings

11. Privacy Settings

12. Privacy Settings

13. Promoting Professional News
on your Personal Profile

14. Maxing Out
• Once you’re nearing 5000 friends on your personal
profile, it may be time for a brand page.
• Consider defriending people who you added early on and
now realize you have no real connection
• Only friend people you know. It’s ultimately what
Facebook is set up for in terms of using your personal
profile to the maximum benefit of the platform

15. Branching Out
• If you reach 5000 friends but do not want to start a
brand page, allow SUBSCRIBERS. This allows anyone to
follow your posts. If you allow subscribers, you should
be cautious about what you post, since strangers can
see your content.
• If you want to post personal content, open a Twitter
feed where interactions between strangers seeing your
tweets is commonplace.

16. Subscribe Functionality
• The Subscribe functionality…
• Allows your status updates and posts to be followed by anyone on Facebook
• Is used heavily by celebrities and thought leaders
• Opens Facebook up to “Twitter-like” functionality with more visual
enhancement

17. Subscribe Functionality
• You can find people to subscribe to via the following…

18. Subscribe Functionality
• You can find people to subscribe to via the following…

19. Subscribe Functionality

20. Subscribe Functionality

21. Personal Profile vs. Brand Page
vs. Subscribe Functionality
Personal Profile Brand Page Subscriber Functionality
5,000 friends max Unlimited fans/likes max Unlimited subscribers max
to your personal profile
status updates
Timeline functionality Timeline functionality Timeline functionality and
subscribers receive your
status updates in their
news feed
Linking to open graph Linking to open graph N/A
apps apps

22. Two Distinct Properties still Equals
One Distinct Brand
There is a rule that you are still one brand in the world
of Facebook, “You, Inc.” no matter how many
properties you have on Facebook. Remember this prior
to posting the following:
•Defamation against other clients, agencies,
companies, or people
•Photos you wouldn’t want your parents to see
•Material that you might later regret a potential
employer seeing

23. Two Distinct Properties
Equal One Distinct Brand
•If a post contains opinions of your own, make sure to
note this via (this opinion is my own and not that of my
employer) following the update or state on your profile
that “opinions are my own.”
•Act like an expert in whatever you do, whether it’s
photography, writing, sports, social media or
philosophy

24. Do Employers have a Right
to my Password?
NO. Even Facebook is suing companies asking potential
employees for passwords. If a potential employee asks, politely
decline and say you’ll ACCEPT a friend request from them
instead or log into your profile for them to see in real time. You
can also politely decline as many states are banning the practice
(Maryland just passed a law). If the HR rep does accept your
friend request, you can then defriend them after they have
reviewed your profile or in 24 hours. You are not even required
to do this but it’s more in line with Facebook T&C’s.
Read more on this at:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/job-seekers-getting-asked-facebook-

25. Questions?
Thank You!
Geoffrey Colon
Vice President, Social@Ogilvy
Facebook: facebook.com/geoffrey.colon
or facebook.com/socialogilvy