I would argue that if your work involves social media, especially if you are pitching the use of social media as a marketing and PR tool then it is vital that you are seen to be actively using social media platforms day to day.

Any company is only as good as the people who work there, and in social media, it’s the people, not the company who are important. A company branded social media network which is driven by delivery of “the message” is doomed to failure without individual personalities who will interact with others in a more human way.

The value of “Personal Brand”

Whilst I appreciate that companies not directly involved with social media may need to control employee usage of twitter / facebook / myspace / friendface etc. The idea that “Personal Brand Building” has no value to the company doesn’t make sense to me. If you had just signed Christiano Ronaldo to your football team, you wouldn’t tie his shoelaces together to stop him playing well enough for other teams to want him. If you had hired Stephen Fry to present a television show, would you ask him to use a fake name and heavy disguise. Although these are internationally famous people, it’s only a matter of scale in popularity, not a different thing entirely.

Going back to the world on internet and technology, if personal brands add little value to a company, why is there such a panic over the idea of Apple without Steve Jobs? What would Wine Library TV be without Gary Vaynerchuk? How about Fast Company TV without Robert Scoble? None of these businesses NEED the personal brands created by the people involved but is it right to suggest that they add no value to the company?

Pimping out my Network

At the time of writing, I have 432 followers on Twitter. I feel pretty confident in saying that I would have far fewer if I didn’t talk about personal thoughts and ideas, discuss other people’s projects with them, exchange opinions and share news that didn’t relate to my work. However when I do post about work related stuff, for instance the seminars and workshops that we run or products that we are releasing, should I charge my employer for the use of my personal network as a publicity channel? Of course I don’t, my work is as much a part of my life as anything else that I might be doing. If I wasn’t allowed to share non-work related thoughts during work time, I’d have to stop myself from thinking about work during non-working hours.