Heresy!

But there are a few points to back up search a wicked assertion. But it could be that I am being difficult.  And I am doing this without reverting to the boring “140 words is too short.”  Let’s see:

Intonation – Have you been misunderstood, got in trouble because the recipient of an e-mail could not detect the tone / irony / humour of a message?

Well Twitter can be just as bad – be careful!

Comments – a few months ago if you put my name or company name in a Google search you got lots of testimonials, references, blog posts, referrals to blog posts.  Wonderful!

Now I get comments, some blog, many Twitter.  So now every tweet I have to be careful in case it is a prospect researching me.

Just think a prospect looks for me on Google and I come up with some banter that makes me look rude without the context or a prattle on about Man City and it is a rag reading it, no offence.

And all that hard work building an online profile is being replaced by my inane prattling.

Mixing business and personal – If you have one account that tries to combine all facets of your personality and interests it might not really work all the time.

Of course I could make a business connection while talking cricket or football, but equally I might appear dull and irrelevant to followers (especially in the US for the above) that want to know what I am doing PR wise.  It’s hard to please more than one audience.

Multiple accounts might be the best way forward.

Tantrums - You are really annoyed and Twitter is there inviting you to lay the dirt on your employer / employee / shop you have been going for years / business associate and so on.  You update and calm down but its already there: time to back peddle / repair damage / hope no-one really noticed.

I was close today, glad I didn’t tweet in a moment of frustration.

Alcohol – I was at the Chorlton Beer Festival and had my iPhone and so Twitterfon was within easy reach.  Luckily only a misspelling resulted.