I think that folks should, for the most part, separate personal from professional goals on Twitter.  If I intend to use Twitter for academic purpose, I don't want to read about someone's new car, the food they just ate, and the top 10 ways to use Google Apps in education.  Just imagine  if Google came up with those kinds of results in the search engine.  In the end, it is really helpful if Twitter users have a define purpose in there account.  It makes it much easier to select and sift through the 1000s of message displayed.

I agree with Robin.

I think academics should separate their personal and professional accounts, as their personal and professional lives can be separated. It's a question of privacy, and implies also the "quality" of the account. Maybe, I would not follow a so-called professional account of a colleague if he mixes too much personal news with academic ones.

In the best case, you can publish only the personal news which are directly linked to your research topics. For example, I work on Art Law and Intellectual Property ; sometimes, I publish reviews about the exhibitions I've visisted, or the plays and movies I've watched at in theaters or cinemas. Some researchers also publish photos or pictures of cities or universities in which they come for a conference.

It may be enough to "humanize" a twitter account.

Best regards.

Philippe

I think this could lead to an interesting study.  I am wondering if there are gender differences here and perhaps other factors contributing to one's need for personalization leading to trust of other messages posted.  Anyone game for pursuing this?

Great minds think alike, Robin, I was just wondering that about the gendered differences (though I suppose you and I are thinking alike on research Qs!!)

Ye s- let's talk further about this - I think there is a good study to be created here based on gender differences in social media use.

Yes, though I'd narrow it. And I think I'm more interested in perception of OTHER versus individual use. We will talk!!!!

I only have one, and tend to use it for professional purposes. I set it up as a private account long before Twitter was particularly trendy in academia, so to move everything over was problematic. I also think that it's quite difficult to separate who I am as a person and who I am as an academic. As Kris points out, I like to 'humanise' my account. I keep it open to public, so that makes me think before I post. Having said that, I have found the increased push to post corporate messages (which are not necessarily mine) has left me thinking I should set up a corporate account.

I believe that academics should NOT attempt to maintain separate social media accounts for personal and professional use.  The reason is that the personal accounts can ALWAYS be found by someone who wants to find them. There is no such thing as true anonymity on the Internet.

It is a mistake to pretend that you can erect a wall between your personal life and your professional life.  It is a false division.  Your posts ALWAYS reflect on your career, your school, and your discipline. You can't say "that was a personal post and you can't judge me on what I said."  People WILL judge.

You should consider EVERY POST you make on the Internet, including fully personal posts, for the implications, should it be seen by colleagues, students, administrators, news media, etc.

I have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, Instagram, Flickr, Linked-in, LINE and QQ. Even if I am posting something that is essentially personal, I only post it if it passes the "this reflects on me professionally" test.

Thanks Michael - I know for me (and others in the original face-to-face conversation) it wasn't a matter of concealing. In my case, I like to post adorable pictures of my dog reading academic books (the furrow in his brow when he reads Sartre is priceless). I like seeing other academics' hints of "a life" whether it's the hashtag #thingsphilosophersmake (crafting! done by geniuses!) or their gardens, or their culinary masterpieces, or their dogs. I don't think these sorts of things are anything to be ashamed of. But they are certainly not intended to be "scholarly contributions". The question, for me, is something like how do others react to that. Perhaps to Robin's chagrin, those reactions are curiosity and will not change my Tweets! And I recognize some people may absolutely not follow me at the first hint of my deep affection for those of the canine persuasion.

Laura -- I do not think of my social media as "scholarly contributions" but I think of them as ways of supporting my personal "brand image."  So while I post scholarly things, I also post other things related to work and my students, to my hobbies and interests, my photography, and other things that show that I am a smart, capable, and interesting person.

Maintaining separate Twitter accounts can be helpful. It's easier to receive relevant recommendations on whom to follow with separate accounts. 

We can separate our accounts but if we have people in our institutions who follow us it defeats the purpose if they follow both. I also think it would be too much work to maintain and separate the academic and the personal and often times they intersect.

Decision whether one has a person and professional account may rest in the purpose of having the account in the first place AND the purpose of the user being on Twitter  That said, I wonder how people perceive leaders, for example, when they post personal information?  How much personal information is too much?  Does that personal information undermine the professional purpose of an account?  And are there gender differences in both posting and receiving Tweets?

Continued good questions. As for institutional leaders, I DO want to know what their non-work lives are. I care about their families, hobbies, adorable dogs, etc. To me, it's a way to get a holistic picture of the human. And let's face it, organizational structures these days (when they are big) place a good distance between leader and employee. It warms my heart a little that a certain Provost shares my affection for the talented Mr. Colbert.

A mixed Twitter account might be dangerous for your own job: one tweet that might appall your employer (politically or personally) can cost you your position. Such a mistake happens very often as one can see in several news articles. Therefore I would seperate my Twitter activity on two accounts - if someone is interested in both is free to follow both.

@Laura and Andreas - I see Andreas point - It's nice that the provost shares your affection for Colbert BUT what if she "hated" dogs or was a avid supporter of Donald Trump - what if she posted something that when directly against your values.  That might change the way you perceive his/her professional messages.  So I agree with Andreas that this practice could be VERY risky for the person who posts. 

Convenience may be the main reason users tend to have a single Twitter account. On some devices and in some apps, it's difficult to manage more than one Twitter account. Hootsuite is a popular example of a third-party tool that provides easier management of multiple social media accounts. It's also possible that some Twitter users do not know they can have more than one Twitter account. 

Very interesting discussion! Another possibility would be to use different social media platforms for different audiences. For example, one could use Twitter and ResearchGate for professional purposes and Facebook and Instagram for personal ones. That way one could partly evade the problem of context collapse (see paper by Marwick and boyd).

To my knowledge, there are a few studies that look at the topic of (not) separating a private from a professional social media identity. In the academic realm, the paper by Sugimoto and colleagues (see referenced) could be interesting.

As for the gender question that came up in this thread, an interesting study in a different context (but on the same topic) looked at this. I also referenced the paper. It seems that there are gender differences in separating the professional and personal social media presence for this sample. Interestingly, organizational identification and perceived confidence for private social media use both affect persona overlap (i.e., the blurring of a professional and personal identity) positively. However, the effect is only significant for women but not for men. 

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Maybe.... But, to me, it is not necessary to have separate accounts.

It depends on how someone lives his social life. For a balanced person, it may not be necessary. However, if the gap is too wide, 2 accounts are necessary.

thanks for so many great responses (and the wonderful references also!). To me, humanizing by adding personal information does not mean completely uncensored information. I'm back to my earlier preoccupation with those who post meals they cooked, hobby-type things like their garden, adorable animals they live with, etc. I may be naive, but I don't see these things as controversial or damning. While arguably liking dogs as pets could perhaps be construed as "political" (though i don't think so), I'm not recommending overtly political stuff, such as one's views on The Donald.

To those who say one cannot maintain a private account without being "found" - one certainly can! I have a relative who's online identity is completely un-related to him (name, images etc.), and untraceable unless you are explicitly told it's him (or if you are a very good hacker). Very simple to do! Just pick any name that sounds nothing like your real name, a photo that is not of you or anything traceable to you, and you have a very private Twitter or Facebook account.

I use Twitter in the asymmetric mixed mode. First of all, as a source of up to date information. In the second place, as a way of entertainment and surveillance of people.

I distribute all social networks in which is represented by a functional purpose. I do not like to contain more than one active account in any service and I will not tolerate interference of any side organization with the purpose of moderation in personal activity on Twitter.

Recently I most active use Twitter, G+ and RG.

The need to create a presentable exterior for many people adds extra care problems and leads to a split behavior. As a result, it creates a class of people who are described by A. P. Chekhov in his work "Man in a Case".

Vasiliy - have to thank you for this excellent analogy. I have been reading some of Eugenia Samier's work, and finding that a lot of Russian literature (my mother's area of expertise, too, which drives my interest in this area) has such relevance to many contemporary, quotidian issues. Perhaps that would be a good paper! 

I think it's positive to know which person there is behind the professional. And we already have another systems -repositories or videos- for identify professional profile.

Yes i think it is needed

Yes I think they should.

Twitter is a fabulous network for academics. It's a tool that provides tremendous opportunities for the exchange of ideas with other academics from around the world.

Yes i think it is very important