I had a brief exchange on Twitter this morning with Scott Stratten of Un-Marketing (@unmarketing) that helped me confirm something I’d been mulling over for a long while now. If you’re online in a business capacity, how much of your own personality should you reveal? Answer: As much as you can.

Stratten goes full-bore (at least from my perspective). He posts as much about business-related topics as he does his personal interests and seems to engage all followers equally, whether you’re a business contact or not.

Going through the list of people I follow there are a few that fall into that category, including Dave Jones (@doctorjones), Craig Ritchie (@craigritchie) and Chris Sledzik (@csledzik) who have all found a mix of industry insight and humour that makes them interesting to follow.

Granted, I’ve never met any of the people mentioned above in person, and would be shocked if many of them would recognize my name (plus I feel a bit like a stalker even writing this post), but I do get a sense for thier personalities and from that I build trust.

Some people are here for business and business alone. They don’t mix much of their own personality into the equation and are almost always on topic. That’s their preference and they’re not necessarily less interesting to follow, but I don’t feel like I know any of them.

For me you can’t go wrong bringing a little lit of yourself to your online profile (but maybe don’t go overboard). It’s supposed to be a reflection of yourself after all, so why not let people identify with the personality behind the insight and lend even more weight to your opinion.

What do you think – does it get confusing when you blur the lines between business and personal lives or does it help you build relationships?

From XKCD