{"id":3870,"date":"2025-07-08T15:54:31","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T15:54:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=3870"},"modified":"2025-07-08T15:54:31","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T15:54:31","slug":"four-social-media-communication-strategies-for-professionals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/four-social-media-communication-strategies-for-professionals\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Social Media Communication Strategies for Professionals"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher<\/a><\/p>\n

Given the reputational minefields of social media, it\u2019s important for professionals to think carefully about their strategies for online connections.<\/p>\n

Academy of Management Scholar Nancy Rothbard<\/a> of the University of Pennsylvania said there are essentially four strategies that she and her colleagues identified in their research on this topic.<\/p>\n

1. Being open,<\/strong> which is the letting-it-all-hang-out strategy. This yields higher rates of engagement, although TMI (too much information) may be a hazard if you\u2019re not careful.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe benefit of the open strategy is that it\u2019s easy, and that you’re very authentic, and so that authenticity really comes through to your connections,\u201d Rothbard said. \u201cThe risk is that you reveal something that is problematic in the eyes of one of the multiple audience members.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is really challenging, because there isn\u2019t only one audience segment that you\u2019re talking to when you\u2019re on social media,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a broad-based, non-tailored set of platforms.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe default is to disclose the same information to a broad set of people, and so, if you\u2019re open, whatever you\u2019re saying is going to go to everybody, and some parts of your audience may love it, and some parts may hate it.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Audience strategy,<\/strong> which refers to carefully curating who is in your audience, often deciding to have personal or professional connections (but not both). This includes making careful decisions about who to connect with and which requested followers to accept.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis strategy means that you\u2019re very open with all of your disclosures, but you’ve carefully vetted who sees it, and you\u2019ve got a limited audience that you\u2019ll reveal your thoughts and feelings to,\u201d Rothbard said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem with that is that you don\u2019t always control who your audience members will disclose your posts to, so your audience members could repost or like something that you\u2019ve shared and that other people who are not in your audience could see, so there\u2019s some risk there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

3. Content strategy,<\/strong> which is aiming for a big-tent audience of both personal and professional connections, but carefully curating content to disclose.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might be disclosing personal content online, but you\u2019re disclosing a really carefully vetted set of curated content that is designed not to offend and to be disclosed to a broad set of audiences,\u201d Rothbard said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the one that I use personally, because you never know who\u2019s going to see your online disclosures, but the risk there is that people could think of you as being too curated and not authentic,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

4. Hybrid strategy,<\/strong> also referred to as custom strategy, is taking a customized approach of disclosing different information to different audiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat strategy would be ideal, but it takes a ton of skill and time to do it well, so if you don\u2019t have the skill and you don\u2019t have the time, then it could backfire on you,\u201d Rothbard said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher Given the reputational minefields of social media, it\u2019s important for professionals to think carefully about their strategies for online connections. Academy of Management Scholar Nancy Rothbard of the University of Pennsylvania said there are essentially four strategies that she and her colleagues identified in their research on this topic. 1. Being open, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,71,342],"tags":[],"sp_smart_badges":[],"ppma_author":[70],"class_list":["post-3870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-careers","category-communicating","category-technology"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFour Social Media Communication Strategies for Professionals - Academy of Management Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/four-social-media-communication-strategies-for-professionals\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Daniel Butcher\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/four-social-media-communication-strategies-for-professionals\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/four-social-media-communication-strategies-for-professionals\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Daniel Butcher\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/d1297a59039d9ca7bac9d9f0952e508c\"},\"headline\":\"Four Social Media Communication Strategies for Professionals\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-07-08T15:54:31+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/four-social-media-communication-strategies-for-professionals\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":504,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/four-social-media-communication-strategies-for-professionals\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/02\\\/team-uses-social-media.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"CAREERS\",\"COMMUNICATING\",\"TECHNOLOGY\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/four-social-media-communication-strategies-for-professionals\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/four-social-media-communication-strategies-for-professionals\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/four-social-media-communication-strategies-for-professionals\\\/\",\"name\":\"Four Social Media Communication Strategies for Professionals - 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You can reach him at dbutcher@aom.org or via LinkedIn.","sameAs":["https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/danielbutcher\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/author\/daniel-butcher\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":70,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"daniel-butcher","display_name":"Daniel Butcher","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/DanButcher_Academy-of-Management.webp","url2x":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/DanButcher_Academy-of-Management.webp"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/team-uses-social-media.webp",1000,667,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/team-uses-social-media.webp",1000,667,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/team-uses-social-media.webp",1000,667,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/team-uses-social-media-150x150.webp",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/team-uses-social-media-300x200.webp",300,200,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/team-uses-social-media.webp",800,534,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/team-uses-social-media.webp",1000,667,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/team-uses-social-media.webp",1000,667,false],"owl_elementor_thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/team-uses-social-media.webp",600,400,false],"owl_elementor_team":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/team-uses-social-media.webp",350,233,false],"owl_elementor_testimonial":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/team-uses-social-media.webp",100,67,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Daniel Butcher","author_link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/author\/daniel-butcher\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/careers\/\" rel=\"category tag\">CAREERS<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/communicating\/\" rel=\"category tag\">COMMUNICATING<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/technology\/\" rel=\"category tag\">TECHNOLOGY<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"By Daniel Butcher Given the reputational minefields of social media, it\u2019s important for professionals to think carefully about their strategies for online connections. 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