Let That Sparking Personality Shine

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Your customers will be more loyal to you if they feel like they know you personally.

I recently attended a Rochester PRSA session where local business owners Heather Saffer (@HeatherCupcakes) and Eric Miltsch (@emiltsch) shared advice on using social media for their brands. Both shared the sentiment that to keep a brand’s personality alive and thriving on social media platforms, it’s best to inject some of your own personality.

Photo credit: Eric Miltsch

Saffer is “Head Cupcake” at Dollop Gourmet Cupcake Creations (talk about personality, even her title is creative!) where she manages both the Dollop brand social media properties and her personal Twitter and Facebook pages. She spoke candidly about her challenges to maintain a boundary between the two.

The real issue seems to be is that she doesn’t want to maintain a boundary between the two. When she’s being herself, she’s also being the face of Dollop – the two can’t be separated. She is both at all times, from both the brand pages and her personal pages.  She has received criticism from some that sharing her personality on the brand pages isn’t professional, but she argues that it’s important for the voice of the brand to be consistent and real – and she is the voice of the brand, so she lets her personality shine through. As a result, when her customers come into her shop, they feel like they know her and have a connection with her personally – ultimately making for a stronger relationship and more loyal customer.

Eric Miltsch, director of product strategy for DrivingSales and co-creator of CarZar, spoke about his experience building the following for @AuctionDirect. He said that even though he was managing a handle for a business, he always used his own picture rather than a logo, and used a personal, lighthearted tone. Similar to Heather’s advice, Eric suggested that if followers had a way to identify with him on a personal level, they’d be more likely to view Auction Direct as a resource.

Eric also shared details about the types of content he creates for Twitter, noting that engaging with the audience was the best way to grow followers. He did interviews with followers about their dream cars, filled the articles with links to improve SEO, and posted them on Twitter. He said that even if the interview subject never bought a car from Auction Direct, it was still beneficial to him because his Twitter followers loved that he was getting to know his customer (or potential customer) and shared the content, improving his audience base and SEO.

It’s easy for brands to be scared straight by all the horror stories of social media gone wrong, and stick to vanilla updates. That’s why it was so refreshing to hear Heather and Eric tell their success stories (and share their honest challenges) of being themselves on social media while still representing their brands in a way that engages and attracts customers.