With roughly 2.89 billion active users worldwide, it’s hardly surprising that business advice generally leans towards social media presence these days. In fact, far from being just an occasional company outlet, regularly updated social media accounts, and communication-driven interactions, can now quite literally spell the difference between success and failure. 

Unfortunately, as countless professionals are finding out the hard way, social media can, in certain situations, get sticky. This is especially true for individuals in highly professional roles, who can sometimes struggle to strike the boundary between personality and professionalism. This struggle has already led to countless job losses or failures, and overcoming it even in a professional field means asking one all-important question – what exactly should you be posting to help rather than hinder business overall? 

Unfortunately, with all professional fields requiring an entirely different approach, there’s no easy answer here. That’s why we’ve broken down three socially compromised professions and considered how experts in each can boss social media without worry.

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Teachers

As role models, teachers have to think harder than most professionals about their online presence, especially seeing as their personal accounts usually double up with business purposes including online tuition services, or even student communications. Unfortunately, as can be seen from this article on abcnews.go.com, this crossover has cost jobs in the past, highlighting the need to find ways to navigate the problem as follows –

• DON’T: Post inappropriate pictures or statuses that you wouldn’t be comfortable with students viewing.
• DO: Uphold your professional ethics across all social interactions, even on your personal page.

Lawyers

Lawyers can enjoy significant conversions off the back of social success, but social slip ups could also spell curtains for future clients. This is why many lawyers entrust expert teams like those found at elitelawyermanagement.com to take care of social media for them, and, whether you’re seeking expert help or going solo, highlights the need to adhere to the following –

• DON’T: Reveal your thoughts or EVER comment on current cases – a non-biased approach is fundamental for industry success. 
• DO: Focus on an alternative personable approach, e.g. positing office selfies (preferably with blank backgrounds), or even lunch selfies, etc. Commenting also makes a huge difference for covering for a lack of personal opinion and still keeping everyone on board.

Medical professionals

Medical professionals who deal in confidential and often sensitive cases also face some social setbacks, especially with regards to retaining client confidentiality and ethical priorities. A generally trustworthy approach to marketing here especially depends on a tailored approach as follows –

• DON’T: Post pictures of clients, their medical files, or any medical procedures that leave ethics at risk.
• DO: Post practical medical tips that provide useful advice for followers, as well as keeping on top of comments that ensure personal connections regardless of this more segmented approach.. 

Social media is great, but it can also feel like a slippery slope in these professions and others like them. Make sure that you don’t fall from that marketing peak by taking these pointers into account at every turn.