When I’m in a business-type situation with someone who follows me on Twitter they always use a personal tweet to break the ice (“so how’s the running going Dave?”). I do the same if I can and it works, it’s an ice-breaker if nothing else.

This is great common sense advice Pete – I can’t imagine using Twitter any other way.. Besides, when I do grow a funny-shaped veg the world absolutely has to know about it.

There are some blogs I subscribe to purely because I know they’ll send me good quality links and insights about their work. I’m sure they’re lovely people too, but knowing that their cat put a dead mouse in their shoe one morning won’t improve the quality of the info they put out.

What you could do is talk more about what you’ve done, who you’ve worked with, how you worked with them and make things more personal in that way – keeping things on topic but adding a little flavour. The examples and analogies you draw will show off aspects of your personality too.

I’m much more likely to trust people if they’re honest and perhaps even if I share their sense of humour or share/appreciate their quirks.

My favourite Twiends (and probably people in general) are those who have the right balance of fun and serious.