The Effective CIO

The Great Divide June 24, 2009

This post is the second in a series on managing layered Twitter streams.  The first post explains why this is needed; this post goes on to address how it can be done.

My earlier post outlines the problem at hand: a single Twitter account that has grown to include a broad range of disparate followers, leading me to split the account to better serve two different constituencies. In short, I want a professional stream open to the world, and a private stream that is more tightly controlled.

Step 1: Create my professional account

Splitting a Twitter stream isn’t hard, but it can be confusing.  I began with a single account (@cmusciano) that combined personal and professional tweets.  I had accumulated about 450 followers, and my goal was to split the stream without unduly confusing or annoying all these people.

Since most of my followers were on the professional side, I elected to make this account my professional stream, but with a new name.  Fortunately, Twitter allows users to change their account name on a whim.  By simply editing my account preferences, I changed the name of @cmusciano to @EffectiveCIO.  This allows my professional Twitter stream to better align with this blog, creating a more consistent presence in both arenas.

When you change your Twitter account name, all of your followers are automatically updated with the new name.  Unfortunately, references to the old name in existing tweets are not updated, so someone clicking on an old reference will be misdirected.  I don’t know a way around this; it corrects over time as people begin using the new account name.

The last step in this process is to update all those third-party tools that accessed the original account so that they use the new account.  This is tedious at best and generally annoying.  Many sites don’t have the ability to make these changes; you have to delete your account and start over with the new one.

Step 2: Create my personal account

With a professional account in hand, I needed to recreate my personal account.  I wanted to use the same name (@cmusciano), slightly updated to be @CMusciano.  I quickly created the new account after renaming the old one.  Although remote, there was a chance that I could lose the name while things were in transition.  Luckily, having an obscure name makes that unlikely, and I got my new account.

I set up the profile and began the task of migrating my personal followers from the old account to the new one.  This is where things get very confusing.  You need to remember which account you are logged in as, and it’s easy to lose track and alter the wrong account.  I finally used two computers to keep myself from getting confused.

The easiest way to bring folks over was to log in as @CMusciano and visit the Following list of @EffectiveCIO.  I scrolled through the list and followed everyone I wanted in my new account.  This is an interesting experience; you have to evaluate each relationship and decide if that person is part of your personal or professional world.  You don’t want to insult someone, but you do want to ensure that your personal space remains personal.  In the end, I added about 90 people and companies to my personal account.

This immediately confuses 90 people.  They all get messages telling them that @CMusciano is following them.  Since they thought this was already the case, they get confused about what, if anything, to do about it.  My goal was that they would refollow me back, re-establishing their presence in my new personal account.  Most of them did, fortunately.

During this process, I kept my account unlocked to make it easy for people to follow my new account.  After a few days, when the following settled down, I locked the account.  I now had a personal account, containing my personal contacts, securely removed from anyone I had not approved. My final step was to link this account to my (equally secure) Facebook page.  This allows my Facebook status and personal tweets to be combined, making each account an extension of the other.

Step 3: Create a landing page

With two accounts on Twitter, I felt it would be confusing when people tried to find me.  To help with that, I created a Twitter “landing page:” a place where people could learn about my accounts and choose the one that suited their needs.

Since there is no such thing as a Twitter landing page, I created a third account: @ChuckMusciano. This account contains six tweets that explain my other two accounts and directs people to follow me there.  It is open, but I’ll never post to it.

When I wrote the content for the instructional tweets, it was a bit of a challenge to craft them in little 140 character snippets and then to post them backwards.  This allows them to read in the correct order when you visit that page.

People occasionally follow this account.  I delete the spammers and gently DM the real people, asking them to choose a real account to follow instead. It’s too early to tell if the landing page helps at all, but I do feel better having some public explanation of what is going on.

Final thoughts

Although this process is not hard, it can be confusing.  After plugging away at it, I am happy with the result.  In my next post, I’ll share the final results, reactions from others, and how it’s been working out since the Great Divide.