Profiles “Online”People are increasingly being adoptive of the social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. These sites show an interesting quandary for people who want to use social media for both personal and professional purposes.
Some people juggle separate personal and business profiles for each of the network. Some use one account that merges both professional “brand” image and their very personal life.
How people should use these social networks depends on their objectives and comfort with mixing business and personal info. The most important thing to remember while using social media is that even if people keep separate personal and professional identities online, any kind of information they share online, could be made public or accessible to others.
Privacy Matters a lot:
It becomes a hot topic when privacy issue is considered while talking about people’s use of these sites. Mark Zuckerberg, believes that online privacy is an antiquated concept. While Internet identity consultant Kaliya Hamlin, contends that when social networks like Facebook abruptly change their privacy policies to share your information with third parties by default, it becomes a violation of the service’s social contract with its users.
I think it is critical to be aware of the implications of posting any kind of the content online ever, it does not matter what the context is.
It becomes safest to assume that anything we write or forward or add a comment to online social media sites is set to be seen by someone …. and whoever sees it, may pass it along to someone else (willingly or unwillingly) …. whom we may not necessarily want to be sharing that information with. So, don’t post anything on the Web that you would not say in front of your boss or the person you honour.
Ahead of the time you use social networking sites to connect to colleagues or to find a job by through social media, edit your profile info to make it sure that it only has information you want your boss, coworkers, clients, colleagues, & potential employers to see. Also you should review your privacy settings in Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networks. Make sure you are comfortable with the information that is automatically being shared about you on the Web.
Must Read: Seven words that are banned on CDCs
Managing Your Social Identities:
Do you have only one Profile or Separate Personal and Professional Accounts?
It is fact that social media is great for building and maintaining relationships online and for sharing and finding information you might not get any where else. Social networks, for professionals can open doors by connecting you to leaders in your field coworkers at the office. You can voice your opinion on important topics and be apprised of the latest news by joining the conversation on Twitter and other social networks.
You have only a few options in case you want to get into or make the most use out of the social networking scene for professional and personal reasons. You can use one profile for both business and personal socializing. You can also use separate personal and professional accounts on each social network, or some services for personal use and some for business only.
Go through the strategies below, for a look at each of these options and tips to find work-life balance with social media.
Make One Profile for All Social Media Networks:
In this instance, you would have just one account or profile at, any of the site you choose, like Facebook (and another at Twitter, LinkedIn etc.). Whenever you update your status, add friends, or do “like” new pages, this info will be visible to your friends and professional contacts at the same time. You could write about anything – from the personal to something more related to your job. Its simple and an easiest method to be used. This way you can build a well-rounded online ID and can update all your contacts at once.
Doing so might cause you to be more reserved than you would be normally, if you had a separate personal account.You might require to be more reserved – your professional contacts probably do not care about your Facebook virtual farms. Your friends may not care about the details of the conference you are attending.
One way to channel messages specific or appropriate to the different groups is to set up filters for your contacts to choose the people you allow seeing the message when you post it.
Make Separate Personal and Professional Profiles:
You can set up a separate work-related account and another one for personal use on each social networking website. Whenever you want to post something about work, log into your professional account and whenever want to post something personal, use personal social networking.Doing so helps maintain work-life boundaries.With this method there is less fear of your colleagues or boss seeing personal details of you, that you may not want to share, so you may be more candid. If you do so, messages from contacts will be more relevant to the account type. This way can be tricky to maintain as we need to be sure about our accounts are logged in to the right account before posting. This method is also harder to see or share updates across all of your contacts. However, Some programs, like TweetDeck can solve this problem by allowing you to post from your multiple accounts on multiple networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. You will still need to be vigilant about the profiles you are posting to or from.
Make Separate Social Networking Services for Multiple Purposes:
Do you use Facebook for personal use but also use LinkedIn or other niche professional social networks for work use? Facebook, having games, virtual gifts, and other fun but also distracting applications may be more suitable for general socializing. Meanwhile, LinkedIn, has more of a professional focus, with networking groups for different kinds of industries and companies. Twitter is oftentimes used for both purposes. In this way you can get the same benefits as by maintaining separate personal and professional accounts on every network, but a bit less confusing, too. When you are in Facebook, write about your life. When you are in LinkedIn, you can be all business. But it is harder to share or see updates from across all your contacts. You can also use applications to merge multiple accounts.
The best for you?
Want the simplest method? Are not concerned about mixing your business and personal information? Just use one profile in FB, Twitter, LinkedIn, and/or other social media networks. Many professional bloggers (like Heather Armstrong), famous for being fired after writing quite candid work-related posts on their personal blog, became famous because they had developed strong, often outspoken and online identities where “followers” have a sense of both their personalities and their professional lives. People can use social media to get developed that same kind of online singular identity.
Want to keep your work and personal lives separate? Use either multiple accounts or different networks for multiple purposes. It can be even more complex, but may be better to get work-life balance.
Maintain work-life balance with social networking:
Use separate when using social media according to your purpose, for example, during the daytime only post professional or work-related updates to assist you keep your focus on your job.
Must remember to unplug or log off regularly. Interact with people non-digitally in both your personal and professional life.
