This morning, the delights of Twitter directed me to a fabulous article on The Independent website; revealing a whole heap of work-based confessions, the latter part of the article is particularly amusing as it relates specific confessions made on Twitter. Mistakes made with cows, Billy Connelly, Skype, Mexican Jails and even Visas, the article offers a plethora of mistakes that are hilarious, but potentially better forgotten!
As well as making me chuckle this morning, it also got me thinking about Social Media Etiquette and our personal inhibitions. It is fair to say that the majority of people in the UK have some form of personal social media profile be it Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest or a combination of a few; some use them to share funny videos, things of interest, but many are also guilty of revealing just a little too much!
Chatting about it around the office, we were all quick to remember incidents where you got to know some friends or acquaintances a little too well; from the friend who lost his job because he posted on Facebook about going to an interview, to the friend who revealed she was divorcing her husband for cheating and posted a picture of him in flagrante!
These revelations are arguably a little too close to the mark (although that is a personal opinion) and many live to regret these momentary 'lapses'. As a result, there is also a growing trend of people moving away from these platforms, heralded as the 'Facebook Fatigue' movement, which is causing people to crave their privacy once more and cancel or delete accounts left, right and centre.
This lack of inhibition seems to be a result of the ironically 'impersonal' nature of social media. Whilst it creates connections and can enhance relationships, often these can be fleeting or surface deep making many less fearful of the consequences of their actions. As well as providing a 'face' to hide behind, the platforms seem to have triggered a need to 'connect' with strangers on some small level and often become a narration of everyday events without thought for the outcomes. You only have to look at the recent case of Emma Way making a momentary lapse in judgement and tweeting about hitting a cyclist #bloodycyclists; her personal profile yes, but a lapse which caused her to lose her job, face potential jail time and be found guilty of a number of driving crimes. She herself professed it as '11 out of 10 on the stupidity scale'.
You'd think this 'stupidity' would simply be contained to the 'personal' side of the platform, but alas not! As an organisation, we spend some of our time creating or reviewing content strategies for digital marketing including professional social media platforms. Part of this involves an assessment of existing content, as well as analysis of competitor profiles and there are regularly some surprising and frankly disturbing results. The problem with 'business' profiles is that as an entity, a business is made up of lots of individuals, and individuals have personal opinions. Despite being a 'professional' profile, it is frequently the case that the business profiles become influenced by these individuals. Take the aforementioned telegraph article for example; many of the confessions were posted from personal profiles, there were a few which came from professional accounts; you only need to read the Twitter handles to see @AllDesignPrint and @ShoutAtCows have both joined in the debate. Ironically, inclusion in this article will probably do more for their brand awareness than much of their activity, but the question is, are these kind of engagements appropriate? As you'll see from our post earlier this week, we're hot on spelling, let alone on posts which cross the professional-personal border! I personally swing backward and forward on this issue; on the one hand, it is engaging, fleeting and frequently harmless, but on the other, it only takes one second for specific post to go from harmless to PR disaster. A slightly tangential, but none-the-less applicable example earlier this month is Kellogg's tweeting about giving a child a breakfast.
Ultimately, I work on the basis of 'better safe than sorry'; sometimes, it is better to forsake a potential connection in favour of protecting your brand and keeping it neutral. Many big brands can afford to make a bold statement because they have the resource to manage it, but if you're an SME, you better be prepared to handle a big debate if you choose to be 'controversial'. In the meantime, if your business can't weather the storm, I'd advise you keep your personal opinions, political assessments and competitor digs to yourself and be the bigger man (or woman)! Don't forget, it'll be hard to take back if you don't!
What do you think?
P.S. whatever your decision, we'd advise you have a social media policy for both your business and your staff so that they understand the parameters in which to operate, the expectations you have and what is and is not acceptable. Should an incident arise outside these parameters, you have grounds on which to address them.
Author: Victoria Petkovic-Short, Account Manager