As Elysium Marketing Group began managing some of our clients’ social media, we noticed that some of the profiles were not aesthetically or topically on-brand. The deeper we dug, the more we saw the companies’ leaders’ personal interests, political preferences, and sense of humor peeking through their accounts.

While many brands are built by strong leaders with equally strong points of view, the bottom line is that the founder(s) and the company(s) are two separate entities.

Below are five reasons why you should separate your social accounts from your business accounts.

1. Relevance – One of the most important things to keep in mind when planning your upcoming social media strategy is to ensure you’re giving your followers what they’re looking for.

If you’re a national jewelry company, most likely your followers are following because (a). they like jewelry, (b). they like your jewelry, and/or (c). they like the fashion/accessory industry. If you personally like baseball as well as jewelry, it doesn’t mean your followers/customers do too. The bottom line is if you start to post too many irrelevant posts that aren’t related to your industry, your followers are likely to unfollow your account, leaving you with fewer people to engage with and market to.

2. Sensitive Topics – Politics are a BIG deal in 2016. Many people have very intense feelings about the candidates, the political parties, and the direction of the United States. While opinions on these topics are plentiful, it’s best to keep them separate from your business or your clients. You don’t want to alienate followers/customers/clients who may have differing views.

3. Sensitive Topics Part II – Politics isn’t the only topic that can divide people. Posting about religion or race is also content that could cause some followers to feel uneasy, plus normally it would not relate to your brand’s business goals.

4. Old Content – We’ve seen people who start a social media account as a personal account, then decide to change the page to a business account. The problem with this is when a follower decides to take a more in-depth look at the company, they could start to see personal photos or irrelevant photos that are separate from the objectives of your business.

5. Security – Most business owners don’t have time to manage their business’ social media profiles. Whether an in-house employee or outsourced social media expert begins to manage the accounts, you don’t want to give your personal passwords out to anyone. It’s better to keep your personal passwords private, but share your business passwords with the professionals or team.

What we’re definitely not saying is you can’t have fun on social media. If your brand lends itself to it, have SO much fun. Post fun memes and awesome gifs, but please keep it business related. As the wise Michael Corleone from The Godfather says, “It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business.” Social media wasn’t around when this movie came out, but we’re pretty sure he’d agree with us that this saying would apply to your social media accounts as well.