I’m going to talk today about something that could be uncomfortable for some, maybe because you don’t want to be assertive or hurt someone’s feelings. Maybe you’ll be uncomfortable because you’ve done it before. Perhaps you were taught to do what I’m going to talk about as a way to get your business seen by more people or maybe you’ve done it simply because you thought it was a brilliant idea. Today, I’m going to talk about hijacking someone else’s social media profile or page. I’m not talking about Facebook groups here, I’m talking about profiles and pages – the ones you see in your feeds or visit that you don’t own or admin. Before I get into this fully, I realize there’s no way to enforce rules on a profile or a page, but, you do have the right to delete, ban users, and/or remove posts that are spam, harassing, etc. So, here we go …. Don’t advertise or promote yourself on someone else’s profile or page unless they’re asking to do so. If no one is asking you to share information about what you do or ask you to promote yourself, resist the urge to strut your stuff. To promote your products and services, create your own profile or page, add good content to it, and promote it as needed, but don’t use other people’s pages and profiles to lift yourself up in their space. It’s like going to a stranger’s house or someone you met in a business meeting once and not knocking on their door. You just go right on into their house, walking to the fridge and picking what you want to snack on, and then lounge in their recliner and watch TV for a couple of hours before you just up and leave. It’s disrespectful and it’s intrusive and whether you think it does or not, it reflects negatively onto your business. You really don’t want to be that person, do you? Create your own page and promote yourself. Build credibility and expertise on your own, with your target audience, not someone else’s unless, as I mentioned, they invite you to be in their space. What can you do if you have users invading your page or profile with their self-promotions? First thing is, don’t be concerned with offending anyone to take action. Don’t just put up with the bad behavior or deal with the disrespect because you don’t want to be or look mean. Take action and protect your profile and page. Protect your business’s reputation and your audience. You worked for the audience, you’re building relationships with them, although you don’t own your social media space per se, your profile is yours to use, not someone else. Actions to take: Block them. Delete them. On Facebook, hide the posts or disable posts by others to be published on your page (however, this does not disable comments and I’m not sure you want to disable comments if you’re looking for engagement, right?*) Don’t fret about making the decision to remove comments or block people. Obviously, their engagement is affecting your analytics, but not nearly as much or even in the way that you want engagement to benefit you. When you have followers and interactions that aren’t from customers who are your target audience, your numbers may rise, but in the end, it’s not going to help your revenue in a positive way. Trust me, I’ve had to do this before myself and although I don’t like to have to delete or hide comments, and although some people may get offended, it’s not your behavior that is out of place, it was theirs. *On Facebook, you can disable comments on a post if you want by clicking on the three dots in the right corner of the published post and scrolling down and then clicking on “Who can comment on your posts” and then clicking on one of the following options: “Public”, “Pages you follow”, or “Profiles and pages you mention”. Whoever is not flagged by your selection of audience will see a note saying that comments have been turned off for the post and they will only be able to share or give a reaction to the post.
