What who you’re FOLLOWING says about you

September 10, 2012 Written by Nikki Peters

By Francesca Rivett-Carnac

On Monday we started our week at Stand Agency with a social media session, led by our newest addition to the Stand team, Blair (you may have read his blog a couple of weeks ago A Scot in London: an introduction). Once we’d finished discussing new and novel ways to build brand profiles on Twitter, the conversation turned to our own Twitter profiles and the brands and people we follow. It was insightful, entertaining, and it got me thinking about the way it’s no longer necessary to compartmentalise our personalities and interests into work and non-work.

Looking around the room I saw a top team of PR professionals, united in our drive and energy. We work together each day. We don’t always agree with each other, but collectively we come up with great campaigns and deliver brilliant results for our clients.

But an inspection of our Twitter profiles revealed something else – a bunch of individuals with wildly different interests and motivations outside the four walls of our office.

Take Laura. PR strategist extraordinaire, who has advised more businesses and charities than you could shake a copy of PR Week at. But rifle through her tweets and followers and you see something quite different. A fashion-loving, celeb-following, foodie with a penchant for fluffy tweets and updates on her training regime.

Then there’s Rebecca. PR director by day, political tweeter by night, following activists, leftie campaigners and mummy bloggers, sharing their views on everything that’s wrong in the world. You don’t mess with Rebecca McLeod when it comes to sexism or politics.

Blair, Stand’s resident Scot, would appear from his Twitter profile to be football obsessed. Football, with a bit of politics thrown in for good measure. And tea drinking. Meanwhile Nikki, our brilliant Essex raised university graduate, is always off to check out the latest cool bar or restaurant between trips to Ikea. And I follow a hodgepodge of local Hackney businesses, music people and artsy fartsy magazines that talk about stuff I don’t really understand.

In a different time or perhaps a different sector, our team at Stand Agency may not have thought it was worth sharing our passions and hobbies with our colleagues. But encourage a raucous and colourful mix of interests into the office and you suddenly have a whole world to draw inspiration and entertainment from beyond your own.

Twitter is nothing new, and neither is the idea that you can share your real personality and interests with the people you work with, rather than hiding behind the emotionless façade of a professional. What struck me on that Monday morning was that the things that make you tick outside of work can often bring something new and interesting to your job and the people you work with.

Share what gets you out of bed at the weekend with the colleagues you get out of bed for each weekday morning. The results might surprise you.