Actually, I don’t put photos of my dinner on Facebook, but I suppose what I am asking is how far should we integrate our personal and professional lives across our various social media channels?

How much we share about our lives at work is always a personal question, most of us share a lot with close colleagues and a little with the more remote ones. Similarly, we might discuss intimate matters with a close friend and share a laugh with acquaintances, but social media is a very ‘flat’ medium. If you don’t want to share your intimate feelings with someone you met down the pub, then you have to keep it light and fluffy. Be ‘your fluffy self’ or a version of yourself on each social media channel.

And I find I am a very different person across all my social media. Should I be integrating myself into one wholesome being, or developing a wide range of social media personalities to complement aspects of myself?

The question began forming on my mind when a friend said I should promote my website on Facebook and Twitter. I am not sure my Facebook friends would agree. They usually see my holiday snaps from exotic locations or photos of strange moths in my garden… not to mention the odd rant about subjects close to my heart, why would they want to know about my work life? So, should I be setting up a work Facebook and a work Twitter? And then there’s all the other ones: Instagram, Snap chat, WhatsApp… when would I get any work done?

Already in my personal life, social media is a complicated place. People send me messages and I forget whether it was a text, a messenger, a WhatsApp or an email – and I spend ages ‘scrolling around’. I have to mute all those WhatsApp groups otherwise people randomly venting on the state of the local park ruin my sleep.

I have a friend on Facebook that likes fox hunting and pictures appear of him charging around the countryside on his horse. I detest fox hunting. But, because most of my Facebook friends are in fact real friends and acquaintances, I would never comment on his posts. I agree to disagree. In real life we are tolerant and respectful (one would hope) of other people’s opinions.

However, on Twitter, most of my followers/followed are mainly people I don’t know, united by a set of interests. There I would happily retweet an anti-fox-hunting meme. It is all very abstract and we can easily see how Twitter can descend into nastiness and personal abuse as people clash over ideas and opinions. I once got grief off someone because I incorrectly identified a greenfinch in a photo. It’s a bird photo, calm down!

LinkedIn is all about being professional, and linking up with colleagues and ex-colleagues, except it doesn’t work very well. If you think ‘I wonder what so-and-so is up to’ and click on their profile, they get a message to say you have looked at them. It makes you feel like a stalker, I daren’t click on anyone. Apparently though, you can stalk people in secret. Good grief.

There is a bit of an over-emphasis on ‘personal success’ in my LinkedIn newsfeed. I like to work on interesting projects and earn enough cash to pay the bills but there’s only so many “Ten ways to improve your productivity and boost your career” articles I can read.

Each channel has its little niche, so, no, for now I won’t be posting my dinner pics on LinkedIn or boring my Facebook friends with my website or tweeting about my work to my unknown followers: I’ll be juggling life with my multiple personalities. However – if you want to see a photo of my dinner last night – just say. Everything is possible on this website.