If you run a business, you know how easy it is to make small mistakes that turn into big problems. One of my worst mistakes was trusting too easily when setting up social media accounts for my business. Let me share what I learned, so you can avoid the same costly error.
The Importance of Separating Personal and Business Social Media
I spent a few hours last night making new social media accounts and trying to find the best handles for TTG. The reason I'm doing this is because I made the mistake of trusting too easily and I got burned (again). I'm ashamed to admit it, but admit I must, that in the past I have fallen foul of the advice I share with you today, and it is because of the consequences that I feel it's important for people to be aware that when it comes to business, you should make people earn your trust.
Before I get into that though, let me shed some more light on some things I learned about social media accounts. These new accounts I have made for TTG are probably the 4th iteration. I don't even remember how many there are with the multiple socials available, but the reason for the duplication is that I didn't understand the importance of separating my emails from the business.
Like most people, I began a few years ago with the intention of sharing social media content online, and I just used my personal email to make the accounts - I chose some handles - and off we went. There are lots of issues that happen with this approach, however, the least of which is that it gets very messy and confusing. Imagine 8 accounts (personal and business) on the same phone. AH - nightmare.
The worst-case scenario, however, is something you don't think of until later - transferring ownership of accounts in personal names isn't possible. But why would you want to do that? Well, for most small businesses, at some point you'll want someone to help you manage the accounts and posting. When you do this with a personal account, you essentially have to share your password and then constantly have to keep approving their sign-in requests throughout the day. Trust me, it doesn't work. The worst problem, however, is when you potentially are successful enough that you might sell your company.
You simply can't transfer ownership of personally held emails like yourname@gmail.com.
So if your social media accounts are all connected to your personal email, and a big part of the value of your brand is connected to your socials, you're in a serious pickle.
The Risks of Trusting Too Easily in Business
These last two problems are not theoretical but very real, and recent enough that it still hurts. That brings me to the wider point of trust in business. I recently went into partnership with a friend. It's almost exactly a year since we signed the contract, oddly. (I'm remembering now how happy I was when we finally agreed on the terms - I feel so stupid now that I know what I do). I won't go into the details of the partnership and why it didn't work here, I'll share all of that some other time. But one of the biggest mistakes I made was trusting someone with my money and my business who hadn't earned it.
It's easy to do though. Like a romantic relationship, it's easy to see the person through rose-tinted glasses at the start. You start imagining what success will look like and the romance of the dream makes you overlook what later seems so obvious as red flags. This is the mistake I made 12 months ago. We were friends for a short while and began to spend more time together. While I now know I didn't know him very well, at the time it felt like I did. In any case, as history transpires, we for better or worse, decided that he would join TTG as a partner.
Without getting too distracted from the purpose of this blog, let it suffice us to say, I didn't know the person I was getting into business with. I trusted him. I trusted him in the skills he said he had, I trusted him in the way he managed his time; the value he would bring; the jobs he could do; and the initiative he said he had. Sadly over the next 7 months, our partnership deteriorated to the point that we had to separate, and we are still in the final stages of that separation.
What I Learned from Losing Control Over My Social Media Accounts
While he was a partner, he was responsible for all non-clinical aspects of the business and therefore he set up the social media accounts. He did so on a new email he created on Gmail - a personal account. This was therefore registered to his name and his mobile. For the reasons outlined above, this was a nightmare. Every time I wanted to do anything on social media, I would have to input the password and he would have to approve the request because of 2FA. At times when he couldn't access his phone, this meant I couldn't move on.
The worst problem, however, I only realised when we decided for him to leave the company. We realised that all the accounts could not be transferred to me because they were connected to a personal email account. In our case, as ironic as it is, the lack of progress we made during the partnership helped us, because there wasn't too much to lose. But I can imagine how devastating it would be if I had built a brand on socials to be told that I couldn't own it.
The trust I showed, I shouldn't have. He hadn't earned it. I'm not saying he's a liar, or intentionally set out to deceive but whatever the motivation, I disagree with the outcome. When it came to something as integral as the ownership of bank accounts, and social media accounts, I should never have allowed it. Instead, I should have practiced what I'm urging you to practice, which is something I have theoretically always known and even taught.
How to Avoid My Mistakes
In the Islamic tradition, it is reported that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said 'meet as brothers and do business as strangers'. Similarly, it's old-aged wisdom that only 3 people truly know a person - his spouse, his travel companion, and his business partner. Therefore one should be careful in taking first or even early impressions as strong indications for people's personalities. In reality, we all put our best foot forward when we meet friends and more distant acquaintances, and it's only after we engage at a more intimate level does the facade fades and our true realities show.
Not unlike relationships, where people can date for years and are confident that they know the person they 'love', only to later shout in anger, 'You're not the person I thought you were'. So, as in marriage, business partnerships would also benefit from heeding this advice of not jumping in too early. I wish I had let this lead me in my decision-making 12 months ago. But I didn't, and that's why I share this blog with you, so you all can avoid these mistakes.
So that's why I'm making the new social media accounts. Just one to go now (Instagram) which I'll do today. I had to find new handles which is a pain because the old ones like (@thetinnitusguy) are taken, so you have to add annoying suffixes like guy_1. But this time I have made the accounts the right way with a business email. I use Google Workspace so I now have two emails (which I pay for), that end in
@thetinnitusguy.com. The biggest benefit of having an email dedicated to social media accounts is that it now makes the management process so much easier as I can give access to others in the team, and if I ever have to transfer ownership I can do that too. I have no intention to, I must say - I'm in this for the long run.
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