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| Facebook Is Not A Diary |
| Written by Eric Jacky |
| 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. |
