Maintain your personal social media presence

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In addition to the various social media accounts we use for our jobs, it's also important to maintain a personal presence on social media like Twitter and Facebook.

Even in cases where your employer has you set up "personal" accounts to use while employed there (I'll write another tip about this later), you should keep your own accounts that you come to the job with separate from any work-based accounts.

A recent lawsuit highlights the importance of this issue. Blogger Noah Kravitz is being sued by his former employer for taking his Twitter account with him when he left the company. Though the case is unresolved, it shows the importance of building one's own brand outside of your employer.

For online organizers this is especially important. We're hired in part based on the strength of our social media presence, and expected to leverage our accounts as part of any job. Maintaining a personal account, even while working on a campaign or for an organization, helps keep what belongs to whom a non-issue.

Ever have conflict separating work and personal accounts? Share your experience in the comments!

Melissa Ryan (@MelissaRyan) is New Media Director at NOI

Photo from mediaspin, via Creative Commons