Often, we come across a small organisation or business that is so attached to the founder(s), that one cannot tell the difference between the two. When an organisation or business is in its first stages, this is understandable, because no one understands or communicates the vision and passion better than the founder.  

As the organisation or business grows, it is also not unusual for the founders to struggle with letting a third party handle its communications. Effective communication is essential for a small business or organisation’s growth and stability. Despite its commonplace nature, many businessowners overlook or mismanage this vital tool, which can potentially derail the entire operation. It is common for a founder to run all communication platforms of their brand especially social media pages.  

Let us break down the various risks the business might face when business owners do not separate themselves from the business. 

Personality 

Every business/ brand has a personality. It has a purpose for existence, it has values, a mission and a target audience. While most brands will take on one- or two-character traits from the founder, they are rarely mirror personalities. When a business owner for example runs the brand business pages, it is easy for the brand to take on the owner’s personality which can be reflected in the content they interact with, the pages they follow and in extreme cases political and social views.  

What a professional will offer is an unbiased identification of the brand traits, the target audience and messaging. This ensures that the messaging is customised to the target audience and communicated clearly to that audience. 

Growth 

Unbelievably, holding onto your brand communication assets can stagnate your business growth. It is normal for all things that we nurture to outgrow us and take a path of their own. Your vision and value to the brand might diminish as it grows. Managing social media accounts with sixty-five followers is not the same as managing platforms with over a million followers.  

Brands, like people, grow and change personality traits with growth. As your audience expands, the tone of your messaging will also change. For example, a brand that used to communicate as a start-up and encouraging audiences to try out their product/ service will take on a different tone when they become an industry leader. In the latter, the brand takes on a more authoritative and expert tone, you know what you are doing, and the audience needs to trust your opinion. 

Allowing a professional agent to handle your platforms allows for a more strategic approach to your communications backed up by industry trends and analytics into your audience’s minds and behaviours. This leaves the business owners focused on the more strategic outcomes like sales, revenue or awareness. 

Crisis Communication 

If your brand has the misfortune of running into backlash on social media or other communications spaces, the business owner must be very strategic about how they respond. We have seen it happen too often, when a brand gets a dissatisfied customer who takes their cause to a social media platform and the brand responds with a defensive statement assassinating the customer’s character. It is highly likely for a business to run one of these cringeworthy statements instantly diminishing the value of your brand in how you respond to these complaints. It is easy for the business owner to take on this criticism as an attack on them and respond accordingly. 

Hiring a professional will have you create a professional and proper statement that allows the owner to take a step back and review the situation with a level of impartiality. 

Content Versus Platform 

Not all content is suitable to all digital platforms for example, Instagram Content may not get you the same interaction on Twitter or LinkedIn. It is important to match content to platform when relaying a message to your audience. The services of a professional will allow creating content and customizing it to the different platforms. This might be because, different sections of your audience are on different platforms and take in information using different medium. This is the reason one might find that some platforms grow while others stagnate.  

A professional will supply insights and strategy for each platform while communicating the brand message seamlessly and meeting communication targets. 

It is important for the business owner/ founder to be heavily involved in all aspects of their business; however, they need to allow the brand to take on its own life and grow. Getting a professional to support your brand voice and growth.