I’m a financial planner in my early thirties without much of a reputation yet as I’m 3 years into a career change. I have a separate Instagram page that I set up purely to document the transition to my natural hair texture but it unexpectedly started to grow traction. I only have 3000 followers but I’ve been fortunate enough to have done two international hair campaigns (they reached out to me) and one international makeup campaign (I was a social media competition winner).
I love my job and..
I mean everyone is different and agree that more people are pursuing many different things simultaneously these days. Personally I wouldn’t be put off if I found your IG page and was a client of yours - I’d be curious and maybe even follow but definitely wouldn’t think less of you in a professional setting.
Thank you for your perspective!
For me, it makes you seem like a well rounded person with interests and passions outside of finance.
It could even be an advantage, showing you have a firm grasp on the real world :)
Social media influencing is soon to be a 30 billion dollar market. Would be surprised if you ended up quitting ur job to strictly do that. Keep posting. Keep using all of IGs features. Keep growing and good job !
Love this! Thank you for your encouragement
If I were your financial planning client, I would find it interesting and cool, not a turn off.
I’m in a finance role and one thing I’ve learned is while many people enjoy a creative, fun, risk-taking personality, that is not what people want in their banker or anyone who touches their money. So I would just slightly caution you approach your beauty/hair IG realizing every client, boss, colleague will likely will see it. Carefully thought out posts, smart branding & choices, even grammar, spelling, etc. Make sure your beauty persona supports that you are smart, articulate, careful and thoughtful, respectful, etc. But of course you can show more of your fun personality and uniqueness. I think it would be a pro not a con in your personal branding.
… I’m committed to my career for the foreseeable future, but I don’t want to let my Instagram page go, because it could be something great. My moonshot goal (10+ years) is to move into the beauty space and having a solid following would help the transition, but I’m worried about how it could impact my professional reputation if clients/peers come across my beauty IG.
I wanted to get some opinions from people on here about this? I want to be taken serious in my work but something I discuss with clients is that careers aren’t linear like they used to be and millennials are the slash generation. From this perspective I don’t want to let my IG project go.
I’m not sure I see the conflict of interest. Has someone in a position of power asked you to take it down or are you having an internal conflict of branding and perception? Perspective: Also a young 30-year old considered “young” in my career and have side hobbies that have a public facing following.
Thank you ASC1! Dm’ing you now
As often as I see financial planners recommend side hustles and multi income streams, it would make me take the advice more seriously if the planner actually took their own advice. I say keep it!
Nowadays everyone has some type of business in addition to their job. And I even see it on people's headlines on LinkedIn. As long as you do your job and your business doesn't interfere with your job, you're good. I finally learned this after leaving my last job. So when I get my next job and have my business will no longer worry about what the organization thinks as we are multidimensional & also it's good to have multiple streams of income. One of many things this pandemic has taught us, we need something to fall back on bc nothing is guaranteed.
Hear hear! What’s your business? Would you offer the information up (sometimes it’s in contract) or would you keep it to yourself but be honest if asked?
As long as your Instagram page doesn’t have explicit/inappropriate content, it shouldn’t be anything that would hurt the financial planning! It’s definitely ok to be more than one thing, especially when being authentically yourself ❤️
It’s tough - but I think having a bubbly happy personality as your brand there makes sense. And it’s hard not to tone done a bit for client service, so I think it’s understandable. I’m now mid-30s and consulting and my industry is very male dominated too but I’ve tried to apply my enthusiasm to set myself apart and try to be more passionate - depends on who your clients are ❤️
Also it shouldn't effect them AT ALL this is your personal side hustle.