I’m largely reiterating what many have said – I use Twitter largely for professional use.. of course with my own personality and sprinkles of personal input.

As for Facebook it is almost 95% personal – I do add colleagues and business-related people but often only to my limited profile. I don’t really want to subject them to regular updates on my baby’s development, but they can access relevant info & contact me etc. I find the limited profile a great option as you can still expand your network but eliminate any doubts about divulging personal (yet appropriate) info.

On Twitter it’s a mix, however mostly professional. My business blog is professional (and linked to Twitter), and a I have personal blog that I simply refer to and don’t tweet about.

I have made great business contacts through Twitter so I need to have a reason to bore them with personal statuses as I do on Facebook And I’m not particularly interested in what anyone had for breakfast or dinner or tea I do tweet on a range of different things I am interested in… and it’s actually through that I’ve made some surprising contacts.

By the way on Facebook my friends seem to want to know what I am up to. I found that out when I ceased my status updates for a while. But then, I use FB for my personal stuff.

I certainly do keep in mind that my so-called personal tweets should be at a particular standard, too, because everything is searchable and discoverable.

But I’m not really getting at that. What I am saying is that I can comfortably talk some of my personal interests (a Red Sox game that I’m watch, a good novel that I’m reading, etc.) right alongside my Twitter posts about best practices for community building. All of that makes up who I am!

Bryan Person | @BryanPerson

I feel that pretty much every single word that I put on the web is “professional”, in that potential clients/employers/partners might see it and use it to evaluate whether they want to work with me. So I have to view everything that I say or post in that light.

While I envy some of the bloggers who are (right now) in a comfortable employment situation where they can pretty much say anything they want online, I wonder what will happen in ten or twenty years when they want to run for office, open a daycare, adopt a child, or do something in their life that might subject them to scrutiny from others who have a “search” button.

Once it’s on the Net, it’s forever.

But sometimes, I’m surprised. For example, a couple of weeks ago someone I hadn’t seen or talked to since high school e-mailed me after stumbling across my blog (or Facebook profile) and mentioned her company was looking for help with developing a social media strategy. So … you just never know.

Plus, isn’t personal part of business?

Bryan Person | @BryanPerson
LiveWorld

@Janet Clarey: I find it perfectly understandable to care what your non-business friends think of you. it sounds like you may have to find a way to reconcile that though. Otherwise it will eat at you and I think we all are starting to agree to some extent that we cannot control this. they will merge.

@Jennifer: You seem to have already come to terms with this and enjoy the benefits. i wonder what it’s like though for someone who really goes out of their way to separate or even those who fail to get involved because they don’t think they can.