“But on a bad day, I look at the stuff I share and I am worried about how it looks to people who aren’t in on the joke. And especially to those prospective clients who don’t realise that my online persona is 20% of who I am.”

I don't have the answer. I do know, from years of moving around as a kid, not being in on the joke isn't much fun. If I'm excluding people, unintentionally, with my behaviour I'm upset by that. I do tend to use social media only for work but normal office situations are social and not everything said in the office applies to the job.

I'm relieved to hear I'm not the only one conflicted about this.

As for the language, I have a policy not to use profanity because it's a sure-fire way to upset people. The problem is you just don't know which people will be upset and when. I'm not at the place in my own business where I want to risk doing that. Having said that, as long as it's used in context, it doesn't bother me to see it or hear it.

Its difficult to judge and there is no right answer, in my opinion. I have some clients in creative fields who I have happily talked to about going to Burning Man with its thousands of drugged up naked ravers, others that still merit putting on a tie, and who I would never share any of my private life with.

What I mostly do is use different social networks for different purposes. Separate blogs for personal and business is a good start (providing both are maintained, even a little bit). But some leakage is inevitable – twitter currently is mostly for friends, but leaking into my serious activist network a bit. LJ is mostly for personal, because I can hide particularly personal updates to varying degrees, so I don't need to worry about it getting inappropriately read by business contacts. Linked In is the great surivivor of second tier social networking systems by virtue of its relentlessly bland, just a business directory, focus.

And on the PR front, I need to be out there and open to establish myself in social media circles, so that means taking a few risks and having an OPINION. You don't get very far by staying in the middle of the road :)

However, I couldn't go around dropping the C bomb like you! ;-)

“But on a bad day, I look at the stuff I share and I am worried about how it looks to people who aren’t in on the joke. And especially to those prospective clients who don’t realise that my online persona is 20% of who I am.”

I don't have the answer. I do know, from years of moving around as a kid, not being in on the joke isn't much fun. If I'm excluding people, unintentionally, with my behaviour I'm upset by that. I do tend to use social media only for work but normal office situations are social and not everything said in the office applies to the job.

I'm relieved to hear I'm not the only one conflicted about this.

As for the language, I have a policy not to use profanity because it's a sure-fire way to upset people. The problem is you just don't know which people will be upset and when. I'm not at the place in my own business where I want to risk doing that. Having said that, as long as it's used in context, it doesn't bother me to see it or hear it.

Its difficult to judge and there is no right answer, in my opinion. I have some clients in creative fields who I have happily talked to about going to Burning Man with its thousands of drugged up naked ravers, others that still merit putting on a tie, and who I would never share any of my private life with.

What I mostly do is use different social networks for different purposes. Separate blogs for personal and business is a good start (providing both are maintained, even a little bit). But some leakage is inevitable – twitter currently is mostly for friends, but leaking into my serious activist network a bit. LJ is mostly for personal, because I can hide particularly personal updates to varying degrees, so I don't need to worry about it getting inappropriately read by business contacts. Linked In is the great surivivor of second tier social networking systems by virtue of its relentlessly bland, just a business directory, focus.

And on the PR front, I need to be out there and open to establish myself in social media circles, so that means taking a few risks and having an OPINION. You don't get very far by staying in the middle of the road :)

However, I couldn't go around dropping the C bomb like you! ;-)