Risks of Using Personal Social Media to Promote Your Business

It’s no secret that social media is a huge platform for advertising and marketing your business. If you’ve heard me talk about the risks of the single-member LLC and piercing the corporate veil, you will know how important it is to keep your business separate from yourself personally to avoid personal liability. So it raises the question: Is it okay to use your personal social media to promote your business?

This is a very interesting question and something that I had not really thought about before.  But I can say, with almost complete certainty, that yes, that is perfectly fine.

If you have a corporation or an LLC and you are worried about protecting your personal liability and avoiding the piercing of that corporate or LLC veil, this would be a great concern, i.e., whether there would be too much overlap between you as a person and your business if you used your personal social media to promote your business.

When a person owns an LLC and has a personal website or blog and also operates a business website or blog for their LLC, one of the key components in protecting your personal liability and avoiding piercing the corporate veil is making sure there is a separateness between you as a person and you as a business.  It may seem like you are dancing on that line if you use your personal social media to promote your business. But the whole idea of that separateness comes from the fact that you and your business are two distinct, separate legal entities. But you, as a human, promoting your business on social media is unlikely to blur that line between you and the business. So I don’t think there is any problem with you as a person using your personal blog to promote your business because you are two separate and distinct beings.  You as a person can certainly do whatever you need to promote your business, even if that includes writing on your personal blog about your business blog.

The only issue that I can think of that might cause some problems is if there is any overlap.  So you may not want to use your personal blog as your business blog, or vice versa.  But really, I don’t think this should be an issue that keeps you up at night. I strongly doubt an overlap between your personal and business social media or blogs will be the deciding factor in an issue of piercing the corporate veil. In any event, as long as you are keeping them separate and distinct, you should be safe.

Now, I should include a little caveat here as I am guilty of not doing this.  I have a personal Instagram and a personal Twitter account, and I also have business Twitter (@_AllUpInYoBiz) and business Instagram accounts (@allupinyobusiness).  I have to admit, I will sometimes use my Instagram and Twitter accounts that are meant for my business to post more personal kinds of things.  And I’m not too concerned about that little bit of overlap between me as a person and me as a business on my Instagram and Twitter accounts are going to put me up for any personal liability.  Especially considering it’s social media, and part of that is to be social with your followers. That’s part of the purpose of having a website and advertising your business online!

So, the short answer is Yes, it is perfectly fine for you to use your personal blog to promote your business website or your business.  Don’t be overly concerned about it.  As long as you are doing everything else right, like keeping everything else separate and operating your business as a legitimate, honest business (keeping your accounts separate and not mixing anything else with your business and you as a person) you should be perfectly fine.