Twitter is not Facebook, says Delaney Kirk, a professor in USF Sarasota-Manatee’s College of Business. Kirk, who has more than 2,000 followers and was named one of the Top 100 Twitterers in Academia by Onlineschools.org, says, “Each social medium has its own purpose. Companies go wrong when they try to do the same thing for each one.”

Kirk’s Facebook contacts are friends or friends of friends, but on Twitter she connects with people she never would have met outside of social media. “It’s a personal learning network,” she says.

The biggest Twitter faux pas is to start selling something. “Social media is about relationships,” she says. “Introduce yourself, start a conversation, build a connection.” Kirk balances her posts evenly between links to outside materials (like her blog) and quick thoughts. “It’s helped me be more succinct in my writing, even when I’m not on Twitter,” she adds.