I have a question about managing social media accounts for clients within an SEO agency

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  eBizWebpages: Branded profiles, but I'm biased since I use one. There's a reason for that though. I am paid by the company I work for (and partially own) to be the company rep here at G+. What happens if I leave the company or need to move into a different role? If everything I do here is on my personal profile then the company loses out on all my past efforts here and has to start all over from scratch with a new rep and their own new profile. Branded profiles provide continuity in all circumstances and that makes the whole effort more valuable to the business.
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  W.E. Jonk: For businesses G+ does have pages where they can add you as a manager [1]. With that the ownership will be at the client. Furthermore there are third party tools that work with oauth and thereby the client can provoke the token, not sure if this also applies to G+ pages but other social media do use oauth for third party tools [2].
  
  Personally I wouldn't use fake names. If you are thinking of using a G+ profile instead of a G+ page for the company name, then people might report that, it is against G+ guidelines (as far as I know), and many G+ users don't appreciate it. If you are setting up a profile for the company owner or other employees because they are to busy to deal with it you need the password/username or login credentials because as far as I know there is no third-party solution that has write access to G+ profile API through oauth. ;
  
  [1] ;https://support.google.com/plus/answer/2380625?hl=en
  [2] ;http://adwords.blogspot.nl/2011/11/third-party-tools-to-help-manage-your.html
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  Duncan Lawrence: Always go with branded. We set up unique Gmail accounts for each client we use, and then everything is connected with that account. This allows for easy transition if it ever needs to take place.
  At this point, people are used to talking with brands - it's not a strange concept, and honestly a preferred one. Beyond initial conversation (such as an email), that's when you make it more personal with an individual.
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  Greg Bellan: +Duncan Lawrence ;curious... why do you choose that route rather than having a company G+ page? ;
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  Jelani Burton: Definitely branded to raise awareness about your company.  ;Personas can be a powerful tool to build a respected source but don't abuse it.  ;I understand your concern w/ being geniune.  ;I think that as long as your sole intent is to add value to your customers/audience, creating a persona will not be negative.  ;
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  Alison Wood: Thank you everyone! Branded pages definitely seems more genuine and better in the long term for the client, though I will still sign any communication with my name. I thought it would be better to have profiles in my name though - as for outreach and networking it seems more trustworthy and less invasive coming from a person rather than a brand...?
  
   ;We had another concern and this was with authorship. I've been under the impression that when guest blogging and linking it to your G+ account, it is better to stick to one overall topic, stay relevant and build up your authority for that particular niche. I'll be guest blogging for different niches when working for clients, obviously I'll want to sign it with my name. Again I think I'm asking the same question - would I use my personal brand G+ account (SEO, social media manager) or set up a new one that's geared towards their brand?
  
  It's my first time working on the freelance/agency side so any suggestions are greatly appreciated! Thanks :)
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  Duncan Lawrence: +Alison Wood - While it is beneficial to stick to one topic for authorship purposes, I don't think it is tool negative of an impact to have more than one area of expertise. But when guest blogging you will likely be hired/paid more depending on your level of influence within that industry, so keep quantitative and qualitative track for when you're reaching out for opportunities.
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  Duncan Lawrence: +Greg Bellan - There is still a company G+ page that is created and managers are added. The client/company Gmail account is used as the owner of the page, and also the main account for AdWords, Analytics, Webmaster Tools, YouTube, etc. We have worked with some agencies before that don't have them unified under one account, and it becomes a nightmare/mess of emails and passwords to try to sort it all out.
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  W.E. Jonk: With regard to guest blogging/creating content I would view that as ghost-writing for a particular company/employee. So I would suggest to create a G+ profile for a particular employee. That is, I would use that profile instead of my own.
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  Alison Wood: +W.E. Jonk wouldn't this make outreach and communication with the bloggers difficult as I wouldn't be speaking as myself, but as the employee through their social profile?
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  W.E. Jonk: Why would it be harder? ;
  
  If you would be working at the company I can see why you would build it on your profile. However as an agency you need to be aware that clients do move on and if your profile is heavily connected as you proposed it might be hard to separate, not only for you and your client but also for the followers. Maybe your client demands you to hand over the profile.  ;In other words, if you have the ownership of the profile you are raising the risk for your client and you need some agreement on when you separate.
  
  Note that you are not setting up fake profiles, in contrast you are setting up real profiles and manage that for your client. On the other hand, if you and client agree to put it on your profile. Go with that. Imo it depends on you and your client and where you are both comfortable with.