I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while, and following the #SWChat “Are ALL Employees Brand Ambassadors?” on Twitter this evening I’ve been spurred to actually get it down on paper WordPress.
So one of the questions tonight was:
Q3) Is it possible to separate work & personal social media presence or are you always an Ambassador for your Brand? #SWChat
— Liz Christopher (@LizCpher) June 13, 2013
There were a lot of very interesting answers, but the general consensus was that it’s extremely hard to get away from associations with the company you work for unless you don’t follow fellow employees, the company and have nothing to do with the brand online. But still, your employers might know you if they find you online!
Professional versus personal
So do you separate your personal Twitter account from your professional account? Do you own a company and use your personal account to tweet about your business / use your business to tweet about your personal life?
I have two Twitter accounts.
A personal account, which I use to talk to “real life” friends and to engage with the coeliac community. I post pictures of food and wine from Instagram. I follow @EmergencyPuppy, various Grumpy Cat accounts and @UberCrapFacts.
A professional account, which I use to talk about social media, post my blogs to and engage with like minded social media fans.
Originally I used the one account. Here are 3 main reasons why I created another account:
- The language and tone of voice we use differs depending on who we talk to offline, why would this be any different online? Wouldn’t it be confusing to tweet informally one minute and then formally the next?
- Do my social media (professional) followers need to see all of my Instagram pictures and random thoughts?
- Do all of my friends want to hear about social media all of the time? No, it can be dull if you’re not interested in that sort of thing.
Think of it like taking your work home with you; your family don’t appreciate it, your friends don’t appreciate it… but your boss will!
This approach is working well for me and I recommend it. There are people who follow both of my accounts; friends who are also interested in social media and digital communications.
There are plenty of people I follow who have one Twitter account that works well for them. But there are some I’ve recently unfollowed due to the amount of extremely personal tweets they are posting on an otherwise seemingly professional account – it saturates their brand messages.
If you are using one account for personal and professional interactions, don’t think you have to create that separation – at the end of the day it’s whatever works for you.
What I will say for a fact, pointed out by friend and colleague (@WilliamsCE), those who think one doesn’t reflect on the other should think again! There may be some crossover, but by separating your accounts people can choose the information they want to receive from you – sometimes people like a choice.
Think before you tweet!
I thought this was a great last thought to leave with you all:
A3: You can separate personal & professional SM accounts, but post something stupid, you’re still fired #SWChat
— Sean Charles (@SocialMediaSean) June 13, 2013
For more information about #SWChat visit the Social Business community on Google+.