twitter - business or personal? - Virtual Assistant Forums

#1 (**permalink**) 12-02-2010

Hi.

Do you have a personal and/or business twitter profile? As a VA, does it help to have both or just one?

I set up a personal profile (@wooliemonster, a nickname) to learn about twitter and follow some people while I was deciding on my business. The VA business is now set up with a different profile name (@frizzy_logic). I have a dilemma as to whether I ask people to start following me on the business profile and have both business and personal (not too personal) tweets. Other VA’s that I follow only have one and it seems to give them more of a personality.

On the personal profile, I only have 43 followers (only a few actual friends), and 39 that I follow. The business was only launched yesterday and has 1 follower. Perhaps I should’ve just changed the personal name to the business – but it’s too late for that now.

What do you do? What works?

Hope that made sense..

Thanks
Julie

#2 (**permalink**) 12-02-2010

Hi July
I only have one Twitter business account, which I mainly use to twitt the link to my blog through WordPress. I have only just started so I don´t have too many followers. :-(

#3 (**permalink**) 12-02-2010

I just have one account, it takes a while to gain followers, I wrote a blog post about twitter this week that may help http://btstranscripts.com/2010/11/29...iness-success/

#4 (**permalink**) 12-05-2010

I mostly use one account for business but to tweet as myself as a person. I have other different completely unrelated twitter accounts that I use for other things. If you want a personal one that doesn't cross over to business, that's a great idea. But I wouldn't mix it with your business one. It really only makes sense to have a personal and business one if you are going to keep them separate. Otherwise you are just doubling your work for both accounts.

The other big consideration here is about branding. Use your business account to help brand yourself and your business.

I wouldn't worry so much about how many followers you have. What counts it making connections with the followers you do have. Personally, I follow about 2500 and I really only probably converse with about 20 of them. More isn't better, it's just more noise to filter through. It is nice to have a good chunk of followers so that you do have people to converse with but thousands really is quite a bit to have to filter through.

#5 (**permalink**) 12-05-2010

I wonder how successful tweeting is. It seems like such a time dump. I got off facebook for that reason (and their privacy issues). Has anyone actually gotten new work from tweeting?

#6 (**permalink**) 12-05-2010

Yes, I've had some work via twitter....

#7 (**permalink**) 12-05-2010

Thanks so much everyone.

In the end I decided to swap the names over - ie my personal one is now named after my brand, and I am just managing the one account. I figured as a VA I should be me yet throw some business stuff in there too. It seems to be what a number of my VA followers do.

Bridie, you probably already figured this out - as you are one of my followers!

Only problem - twitter will let you change your username if it's available, but not your email address, but I can run with what I have (and re-set everything in Hootsuite!)

Julie

#8 (**permalink**) 12-05-2010

I am new to this, but I think I can agree that when I get everything set up I will be using a business twitter account. Can the same be done for facebook?

#9 (**permalink**) 12-13-2010

I have set-up a business twitter account and have a few people following me. My business is still really new so I haven't seen the benefit as yet. I am interested to know what most VA's are tweeting to their followers. I have started with business tips regarding the busy Christmas season.

With facebook you can set-up a group which people can choose to "Like". You can link it to your personal facebook page to make it easier for people to follow you as well. Again I haven't seen the benefit yet however I did read it helps put you ahead on google searches.