On the flip side, if I were a business and I was paying for the content, I’d tell the writers to write however I felt like and what ever name suits my purposes.

Will read more of your stuff and am looking forward to it.

Cheers.

But personas are just one aspect of a diversified social media strategy – individual journalists are doing lots of interaction under their own names, which is certainly a good thing for both them and their organizations. But like you wrote, most companies are still getting their arms around how they want to handle this. Corporate social media policies are becoming more common, but there is still a lot of grey area.

Specific to Twitter, I see some media professionals using profile names that include the brand, like @ricksanchezCnn, but the majority are operating with just personal profiles. But even if an organization had the “rights” to those kinds of hybrid profiles, what could they really do with them if the person leaves? They still include the journalist’s name.

Personally I believe strongly in the right of the individual to express their thoughts and share ideas (either personal or professional) via social media, and that those kinds of networking connections and relationships belong to the individual. And as I mentioned in the post, in this age where few journalists have strong job security, developing a personal brand gives them greater value and marketability. But I certainly see the company side too, so reasonable compromises need to be made. There’s usually a win-win.

If a journalist isn’t building his or her own brand today using all available tools, then they are demonstrating a lack of understanding of today’s media marketplace. And consequently they won’t be making a living as a journalist for very long. Much like those typesetters who didn’t make the transition to computerized typesetting.