Multiple profiles on LinkedIn question

I recommend against multiple profiles/accounts on Facebook/LinkedIn/MySpace. Not sure about Twitter, but probably there, too. Most of us have a work E-mail account and a personal E-mail account, and I'll wager just that has tripped most of us up from time to time.
It's okay to be a multi-faceted person. It's an open secret at my workplace that I have private clients, and that most of my vacations are me hitting the road to earn extra money. No reasonable employer thinks his/her employees go into hibernation pods as soon as they get home: we all coach Little League, volunteer, play tennis, take pictures, write songs, hold down second jobs, or go to night school.
If you're exploring a real-estate career, go ahead and develop it on your (only) LinkedIn profile. If your boss notices and asks about it, have a short, honest, non-committal answer lined up. It's highly unlikely your boss is so paranoid/possessive that he or she would fire you for exploring other options.
It used to be easier, or, at least, I used to have a clearer system in place for my social networking.
Professionally, I'm a graphic designer and Macintosh IT consultant. That goes on LinkedIn.
Artistically, I'm a touring poet and author. That goes on MySpace and my personal Website.
Personally, I'm a friend/sibling/classmate. That goes on Facebook.
The decline of MySpace as a marketplace for the arts, particularly performing arts, has meant that some of my artistic pursuits have spilled over onto Facebook and LinkedIn. But for me to start opening up separate LinkedIn pages, or Facebook accounts, for all the different sides of me would be to open a digital "hall of mirrors" and would lead to me invariably forgetting to update and monitor one or more of those accounts.

Think of it in terms of marketing - if you have multiple personalities in one place, you'll only confuse your market.
So in that light, I agree with Afmoffa - your professional life should go on Linked In, your personal life should stay on Facebook, and never the twain shall meet. I have a fine art and design business on the side which I am planning on starting a company page on Facebook soon, but deep down inside I know that's just for fun and will remain separate from my profile on Linked In.
I have one exception, and that is with Twitter. I have a marketing account on which I *only* post marketing and professional tips, and a personal account for family and friends. As is best practice for any online profile, I strictly monitor who I'm connected to on both accounts, and my private Twitter is locked down so that only those I accept as followers can see my personal, er, "tweets".
You really gotta watch your privacy settings to be successful at keeping your personal and professional personas from mixing online.
 

 I agree that you should have one and only one LI account.  If I see you have 2 or more I'm going to presume you forgot the password to one and created a new profile rather than go through password recovery.
Other sites it's a bit looser but I'd still recommend one unless there';s a good reason to have a second one.  One obvious reason for having multiple profiles on, say, Facebook is where you have a personal one and one for an organisation you're involved with.  In that case, however, the second profile isn't really yours, it's the organisation's.  Another example is a friend of mine has two profiles on both Facebook and twitter because she works in a field that means she sometimes talks about things that are not 'Family Friendly' but doesn't want to exclude people who are too young or don't want to read about that.  She has one profile for the family friendly stuff and one for the not family friendly stuff.
Stephen
 
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Skype: stephenbooth_uk  | DiSC: 6137
"Start with the customer and work backwards, not with the tools and work forwards" - James Womack