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This post has been submitted by Sharon Hurley Hall from Get Paid To Write Online.com.

For most people, a single Twitter account is enough, but occasionally there’s a need to start another one. This might be because you have launched a new site and want to tweet about it using a branded username or, as in my case, because you run a site for a client and need a second account to go with it. Since the end of last year, I have been tweeting for two, which has delights and challenges. Here’s what I have learned so far.

Browser Issues

To start with, there was one practical issue I hadn’t considered. Since I have a cookie set for my main account, whenever I go to the Twitter home page, my browser tries to log me in - not useful if I want to access the other account. I either have to type in the other credentials or use another browser window. As that soon got complicated, I found myself turning to another solution.

Making It Easier

There are several tools that make it much easier to manage multiple Twitter accounts. These range from web based tools such as Hootsuite to browser based tools such as Tweetgrid to desktop tools such as Seesmic Desktop. There’s a good list to get you started on Mashable and if you want a recommendation, I currently use Seesmic Desktop with Hootsuite as a backup.

Automation Is Key

One of the uses of Hootsuite and other similar tools, is that it allows you to automate certain tweets. I no longer have to remember to tweet each post for the separate accounts, as I have put that on autopilot. However, it’s not enough to file and forget; you also have to interact with your followers to give and receive real benefit on Twitter.

Management Issues

There are tools that allow you to auto follow and unfollow, send welcome message and so on. While I don’t use these for my own Twitter account, I do ensure that for the business account, each new follower gets a direct thank you message. It is also possible to automatically follow and unfollow Twitter users, but I have avoided this so far. Another tip is to create a filter for your follower notification messages so that they go into a separate folder where you can look at them every few days. This is essential to avoid inbox clutter.

The Mindset

Management concerns aside, one issues that continues to affect me is personality. I’ll explain what I mean. On my personal Twitter account, I tweet about anything that takes my fancy and am pretty much myself. On the business account, I feel some constraint to reflect my client’s goals and aims. This makes my tweeting less fluid - and perhaps less interesting. The only exceptions are conversations with people who know both of my alteregos.

Have you ever tweeted for two? What issues, if any, did you face?

Sharon Hurley Hall
Get Paid To Write Online.com

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