Strictly business? Personal tweets make profs more “credible”

Those who use their Twitter accounts for both personal and professional purposes often find themselves wondering whether they are damaging their credibility with funny anecdotes or social tweets. According to a study published in the March issue of Learning, Media and Technology, however, the answer to that question is a resounding “no.”

Instead, students perceive instructors who make social tweets as more credible than instructors who remain strictly business, lending support to the idea that knowing a real human is behind the Twitter stream helps people feel more confident about that person’s abilities.

Authored by Elizabethtown College professor of communications Kirsten Johnson and undergraduate student Jamie Bartolino, the paper examines how students perceive professors when they follow their social media updates on Twitter. The paper refers to five “factors of credibility” identified in a 1974 study: competence, character, sociability, composure, and extraversion.

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