Twitter was originally popular for helping individuals keep in touch with their friends and acquaintances through mini updates. Many personal Twitterers still tend to use Twitter in this manner, updating a close circle of friends about thoughts and happenings in their lives. Over time, you can keep up with people you otherwise might not contact often and even make new friends. Twitter removes many communication barriers.
A few things to consider for your personal Twitter presence:
Keeping your Tweets private: If it helps you feel more comfortable with your personal use of Twitter, you can set your updates to Private. Enabling the privacy feature ensures that no one, other than the users you authorize, has access to your updates.
If your friends choose to retweet something pithy you said, that Tweet they share isn’t private. However, setting your updates to Private also prevents Twitter Search from picking up your Tweets; it’s a minor inconvenience that you may be willing to accept if you feel strongly about protecting your personal updates from the world.
Introducing your business: Regardless of whether you plan to build your business by using Twitter “just as a person,” you might want to include some information about your occupation and company in your Twitter profile, and perhaps add a link back to your company’s online presence.
The social capital (trust, thought leadership, and more) that you earn within the Twitter community may lead to new opportunities for you and for your business. Also, your opinions and statements may be biased because of your job, so in the interests of transparency, disclosure is a good idea.
Making it personal: You don’t have to include any business information on Twitter if you don’t want to. Twitter was built with personal connections in mind. Twitter is personal, so dress up your profile and adjust your settings in a way that makes sense to you and reflects what you want to get out of your Twitter experience.