Don’t Make These Social Media Mistakes!
Yes, everyone you know out there has a Facebook and possibly Twitter account, but there is still a right and a wrong way to approach social media.
To begin with, you may want to be careful with anything you say in the public environment of Twitter. There was an actual situation in Chicago where someone talked badly about the state of her apartment, and she was then sued for defamation through the tweet for $50,000. Of course, the lawsuit was thrown out, but it was still a stressful situation for the young lady involved.
Along those lines, how about having a little respect for the dead? There was the instance of a journalist in Aurora, Colorado, that covered the funeral on Twitter of a young boy that was killed by a passing motorist. This allowed the journalist to stream tweets through all points of the funeral service, which is not only disrespectful but also cold toward anyone truly affected by the event.
Here is another thing to be cautious about on Twitter and Facebook. Be careful what you say about your boss! We have all seen our friends on our news feed say how they are stressed at work, can’t stand their coworkers, or something similar. Unfortunately, one Facebook user called her job boring, where she was then fired due to her comment on the Internet. This happens often for people who forget that they are friends with their bosses on Facebook, when they often friend them in the first place out of guilt. This means that you need to be seriously conscientious of what you say about whom on Twitter and Facebook, especially since Twitter is public knowledge for all the world to see.
The bottom line is that it pays to put a little bit of thought into how you use social media to avoid some fairly detrimental mistakes.
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Excellent tips! I think people forget that anything they put forward in any social media outlet bears the possibility of becoming public or shared. You have to censor or edit yourself as you would in any conversation you would have amongst a varied group of people that you know well and don’t know at all. If you have no filter whatsoever then you’ll be fine – but if you do have a filter (as most of us do) then you have to remember to bring that to your Social Media stream.
While it’s definitely wise to remember who you’re friends with on FB, Twitter, etc., the people who were fired for posting comments about their jobs got their jobs back. It might not be the most fun place to be for them, but just saying their job is boring shouldn’t be grounds for dismissal.
There’s also the Oooops! from the social media person for Chrysler who used the “f” word to describe Detroit traffic…
Also, what you post – status update, picture, tweet, etc. may be used against you in a court of law – divorce, criminal, etc.