Anti-Social Media

by Ron Daly

Back in April of this year, Jimmy [my Creative Media Director] pointed me to this story that unfolded on Twitter. It was the story of "The Credit Union Receptionist", a young lady kept a personal blog and wrote a lot of unsavory things about coworkers and members in one particular blog post. That post was read by several credit union muckity-mucks, who launched into a lengthy analysis of the situation. 

After a long list of thoughts/feelings shared on the subject and a LOT of cross-talk on Twitter, someone called the credit union to speak with the young woman who wrote that blog post and informed her that it was probably a bad call, public-relations-wise, to talk about people's bad breath and call them stupid. She took the blog post down and apologized, and everyone learned a valuable lesson. 

Matt Davis (The CU Warrior) wrote a summary of the event on his own blog that included some key rules about "social media snafus" for CU employees organization-wide. To paraphrase/sum up: 

1. Nothing on the Internet is private (this isn't as obvious as people think!)
2. Word travels fast (especially to big-time blog followers and tweeters, like Jimmy, Matt and friends)
3. If you're "linked-in" and a friend's slip is showing, it's probably better to let them know than to let them tarnish the image of their institution.

A week or so ago, the CU Journal ran an article, "What Not To Say On Twitter". Arizona State CU in Phoenix, under the direction of Paul Stull, started putting social media guidelines into their employee handbook. Now, some younger readers might wonder if this is "fair" and if a job can do this to its employees. 

The answer to both is yes. Many businesses already have sections of their handbook and policies they've put together to keep people from doing unseemly things while on the company clock or while wearing the company clothing. They can't know everything employees doing, sure, but a company is entitled to protect its public image through its work force. That goes for your Facebook status, too. 

Stull made a very realistic, very insightful point about social media - that it's growth and increasing importance in the lives of staff and management makes it impossible to ban altogether. Better to be very specific with employees about where you stand on social media, and how you expect them to conduct their public lives when it comes to the company's best interests. 

Have you had to fan down the flames on a "social media snafu"? Tell us about it in the comment section - be sure to specify what you learned from it.