At Jacky Digital, we strongly encourage our clients to consider blogging occasionally. Of course we are busy working for our clients, so we rarely have time to follow our own advice. However, we are occassionally struck by a topic worth talking about, so here we are in our own words...
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Written by Eric Jacky
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Wednesday, 01 July 2009 15:08 |
An event happened this week that really crystalized some of the inherent problems associated with using social media such as Facebook for business. While I love my facebook page, and I enjoy being able to keep up with my friends and family, I learned long ago that it really cannot be used as a place for my innermost thoughts. The primary reason for this is simple, I have many of my clients as friends on my page. There is no graceful way of preventing it, so I learned long ago to keep to light humor, anecdotes or just straight up business related topics as my postings.
This past week, one of my "friends" learned a very valuable lesson. 1) is that many in this country confuse our 1st Amendment right of Freedom of Speech with some blanket, anything goes, no consequences thing, which clearly it is not, just ask the Dixie Chicks. The 1st Amendment protects us from speaking out against our government without the fear of being locked up, thats it. 2) is that if you are using Facebook as a vehicle for business, you might want to practice the traditions of office decorum...no politics or religion.
This friend learned that words have consequences and not long after the announcement that superstar Michael Jackson had died, launched a rather ugly attack in a Facebook post. Regardless of what you personally think of Jackson, the better place for an attack is in your diary, not in the relative public confines of Facebook. By posting such inner thoughts you run the risk of greatly offending a client who may not share that particular view. Never mind the fact that when you post something, it appears briefly on your friend's pages, making their friends/clients able to see the comments and thereby associating your comments with your friends, regardless of if they share the viewpoint.
This friend is well connected, having almost 1000 friends and business associates on the popular social media site. The response was swift and fierce, and within a few hours, this friend had removed their post along with the 40 some comments that had been attached to it. This friend has most likely lost business over the posting and who knows how deeply that could go. I know that the post was such that it made me question my association with this friend, and it really hammered home the point that "Just because you can, does not mean you should".
I advise my clients in this way. If you were the CEO of a large company, and you were speaking in a board room in front of your most valuable clients, would you say everything that comes to your mind? Think of Facebook as a large, permanent record, instantaneously published to your most valuable clients, and simply act accordingly. |
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Like many people, the first time I heard about Twitter was in 2008 when a young man travelling in Eqypt was arrested by the authorities and hauled to jail. For some reason the police let him keep his cell phone, while in the back of the car he sent a simple one word "tweet" from his phone. "Arrested". What followed was perhaps a turning point in human communications. What happened was, that text message was instantly fowarded to anyone who happened to be signed up to listen to his account. His friends got the message, and knowing he was in Egypt, it began an international diplomacy effort that eventually ended with the State Department getting involved and securing his release.
Why does this matter?
It matters because this technology is freely available to anyone, and you don't have to be a geek to use it. It matters because it is a simple tool that you can use to "soft touch" your clients. Just send them a little update to let them know what you are working on, or that you learned something new today, it doesn't have to be anything prize winning, just a gentle nudge to remind them that you are there. Some companies abuse the tool, and tweet many times a day. I recommend throttleing it back and maybe once a day at the most, or a few times a week. You have to keep in mind that like a guest that doesn't realize its time to go home, you don't want to be the one tweeting endlessly when someone has gotten the point.
How does it work?
First, go to www.twitter.com and sign up for an account. From there, you can let your friends know you are now on twitter and they can "follow" your tweets. You can't force them to, its completely up to them if they want to "listen" to you. Then incorporate your tweets into your website. We can help with this. You can even integrate twitter into your Facebook account. Next, think about what you want to communicate, try to keep it simple and in English, don't get fancy with the OMG IMHO blah blah. That's great for teenagers, not so great for business owners. And the most important thing, don't say something you will regret!
Eric
To follow my tweets, click here |
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