Baylor University's Chris Yandle, writing on his blog Yandlepedia: Life and TImes of an Athletics 
Communicator, recently discussed the importance of making a clear separation between your "non-corporate" and corporate Twitter accounts. There is a trend in collegiate athletics where staffers are mixing personal and corporate information in a Twitter account, and Yandle strong suggests not doing so - and why. "Hybrid" Twitter accounts may turn out to be a rich field for litigation.
You also can follow Yandle on Twitter (@ChrisYandle).
Why is Twitter so powerful? Perhaps only Malcolm Gladwell's New York Times Bestselling book,
The Tipping Point, can explain Twitter's meteoric rise in our culture. It seems like every day we are reading about another idiot tweeting or posting "anonymous comments" about their bosses or co-workers or privileged information that - apparently they weren't aware this could happen - could/will get you fired.
Or in student-athlete terms, could get you suspended or dismissed for your team. Social media is serious business. It helps us engage and communicate like never before, but it doesn't stop those of us that lack a "mental filter" from posting stupid things and suffering severe consequences for posting said things. Twitter is a telephone, not a megaphone. It is a platform to communication; not a soapbox for people to bitch. Twitter will only continue to grow at its current rapid pace if we allow it to continue. Twitter symbolizes what is both good and bad in this world. And now that gray area that separates those two words may be becoming grayer.
A few months back, I blogged that there is no such thing as a personal Twitter account. There really isn't. For instance, I have a "personal" Twitter account,
@ChrisYandle, and I tweet all sorts of things - pictures from road trips, current events, Baylor, my family, etc. Because I am a representative of Baylor University, that "personal" Twitter account isn't that personal. What I tweet or say in public can be a direct representation of Baylor. That's the world we live in. And those people that go as far as to add their personal disclaimer - "These views are my own and do not reflect [insert employer here]" - need not waste those characters. Use them for some other useful description because putting that disclaimer in your Twitter bio or on your Facebook page doesn't protect you.
And before you starting saying anything about First Amendment rights, I implore you to re-read what exactly is covered under the First Amendment.
The First Amendment applies only to government employers, not to private employers. Thus, what you tweet can and will be used against you by your employer if you were to do something that doesn't reflect positively upon them.
Personal vs. Corporate
With that being said, which is better: tweeting from a personal account that also tweets brand messaging from your employer or separating the two? My answer would be the latter and that answer has been supplemented by a story out of England. A South Carolina-based company,
Phonedog, is
suing a former employee for - wait for it - keeping his Twitter followers after he left the company. Noah Kravitz tweeted for Phonedog as @Phonedog_Noah, but when he left the company, he changed his Twitter username and effectively took his 17,000 followers with him. Now the company is seeking damages totaling $370,000 ($2.50 per user, per month). I have no idea how they put a monetary amount of each follower, but they did.
The bigger question might be: are those 17,000+ followers following Noah or @Phonedog_Noah? In clearer terms, when we follow someone on Twitter, are we following "that" person or are we following the brand? That's the hairy part about mixing personal and corporate accounts and that seems to be the trend in college athletics, especially the Athletic Communications folks. Surprisingly (or not), I'll use Baylor as an example:
We have several
"official" Baylor Twitter accounts: @BaylorAthletics, @BUFootball, @BaylorMBB, @BaylorWBB, @BaylorBaseball, @BaylorSoftball, @BaylorFutbol, etc. Each sport-specific Twitter account builds that sport's brand equity with its followers. So, when I tweet from
@BaylorMBB, there are several people that know that I'm the one tweeting stats, updates and photos, but they are following Baylor Basketball, not me. If you want to follow me, you can follow
@ChrisYandle. There has to be some sort of separation between what is corporate and what is personal.
At Baylor, we strive to make that differentiation. Because, as the Phonedog story suggests, corporations/athletic departments could have control over the branding/followers you have built over time. I follow some fellow AC folks that use their personal accounts to tweet play-by-play or offer commentary. Some may do it because they want to ratchet up their follower count. But if you haven't already done it, you may want to heavily consider making that separation because if/when you leave your current school, are those followers going to follow you to your new school when they only cared about the things you tweeted about their school? I do have several Baylor fans/alums that follow me because I work for Baylor. Will they follow me to a new school? Maybe, maybe not.
But social media has become such an intrinsic part of our personal and corporate branding that you cannot afford to screw up.
If you are the contact for a specific sport and you only tweet about that sport's team, you need to create a school account for that sport, @SCHOOLSPORT, and create/modify the other account to become your "non-school" account since "personal" really isn't that personal.
As for @Phonedog_Noah, it is both ridiculous and a scary reality. Intellectual property could come into play. Phonedog may have a case and this may set the precedent for all future incidents such as this. If you didn't think it were possible for pro and college sports to become more popular, Twitter has made it so. Our fight with branding has become more of a war because of social media and protecting your message and reputation has become that much more important.
Do yourself three favors: 1) stop putting words similar to "these views do not reflect my employer, yada, yada, yada" in your Twitter bio - it's a waste, 2) understand that the First Amendment and 3) make the clear separation between your "non-corporate" and corporate Twitter accounts. Those two things will greatly affect (in a positive way) your personal and corporate branding strategies.