When it comes to social media, Twitter is the hottest thing right now. Facebook is great, but very personal. There are so many great things about Twitter. For instance, you can let everyone know what you’re doing in 140 characters or less. Which is great for people like me who don’t have the patience to read a novel about someone’s day. Twitter allows you to be someone else; you don’t even have to use your real name. But what if you WANT people to know what you’re doing on Twitter? Well, it’s simple.

• Create a name that people will most likely recognize you by, for instance, my Twitter username is  @AlixSteinPR, my name plus my profession. Pretty simple.
• Start adding people that you already know use Twitter. For example, some of the first people I added were my lovely ex-colleagues from David & Sam PR, @sgeiger27, @magpie247, @abbygilmore, @amandamarker & @jennmcphee
• Once you’ve added people that you know, decide if you want your tweets to be private or not.

My advice is to keep your tweets private if you are ONLY going to be using Twitter as a personal account, like many with Facebook. Otherwise, having a public Twitter account means that you are tracked by the topics that you discuss using the # hashtags or just simply by the words you use. Just remember that if your Twitter account is not private, anyone can look at your tweets, this includes: Your mom, your boss, your co-workers, etc…So keep that in mind whenever you’re posting something on Twitter. Many people have chosen to make their Twitter accounts private because they don’t want their bosses, moms, or co-workers to see what they’re talking about. It’s completely up to you, but realize that anything you tweet about means that you are representing the company you work for. Even if you think what you’re tweeting is harmless, it can have a ripple effect and get back to people that you don’t want it to get to. I speak from personal experience.

Basically, have fun with it. But if you’re going to swear, talk about your dirty laundry or talk badly about your co-worker that breathes too loudly during staff meetings, then you should probably protect your tweets and keep your account private.

Feel free to add me on Twitter.

Signing off now,

@AlixSteinPR

Photo Courtesy of: Model Supplies