You know Facebook is becoming mainstream when the early adopters start getting nervous about what they’re disclosing online.
I knew of a few people who were struggling with how they use social media, but I really took notice when Erin Middleton, a brand planner, wrote a piece titled, “changing the rules.”
“So how are we supposed to function on Facebook when my Director at work can see that I’m ‘recovering from a hard night out’ or that my relationship status went from ‘in a relationship” to ’single?’”
She concluded that this transparency shtick might cross the line into “Too Much Information” for her business contacts, and her business musings might be too dry and boring for her everyday friends.
Thus, she created a separate account for her business contacts and one for her personal contacts.
Then David Reich documented the mistake of a businessman who made this post on Twitter: “True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I’d scratch my head and say ‘I’d rather die than live here.’”
The problem was, he was in town for a business meeting with a client …. FedEx …. and they caught wind of it and took offense.
A fine PR pro himself, David said:
“It’s easy to get caught in a situation like this, since Twitter is about friendly dialogue–But what you write is going out there in public, and Mr. Big Agency Guy should have had a bit more sense and sensitivity.”
Over the next few weeks, the Internet was abuzz with people who pondered or took notice of the ramifications of their prolific use of social media tools:
From CK:
From Jeremiah Owyang:
Yes, folks, it appears Facebook is becoming mainstream. And even though that opens up lots of opportunities for marketers, it is replete with risks.
As of this writing, I have 312 friends on Facebook. I’m not trying to brag …. I’ve never even met a lot of them. Many of them are people I connected with while we were all trying to get a sense of how we could use these tools. As a whole, they cut a wide swath across political and religious spectra, and given my own strong beliefs, I know I’m bound to at some point rub somebody the wrong way.
Does that mean I must create separate accounts for friends who won’t be offended by discussions about Christianity, politics, business, and economics?
I don’t think so. After all, Facebook updates are easy enough to ignore, especially when your friends also have upwards of a couple hundred friends, themselves. Besides, that’s what groups are for.
The right answer for you probably depends on how you want to use the various platforms together.
However, it’s always wise to be mindful of what you say and how you say it. This is true if you’re talking to a group of friends or to a roomful of associates. And considering the fact that it’s much easier to document conversations that occur in the public space online, this is exponentially more true for what you say on Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter.
Mind your manners. Obey the Golden Rule. But find that nuance that still allows you to reveal your winning personality. And even if you’re a power user, try not to dominate the conversation. Listening is still twice as valuable as talking.
Tags: Facebook, Myspace, PR, Social Media, Twitter
It is all about using common sense. Social networks have very little to do with it.
Ahhhh… the Authenticity Chicken has come home to roost. With Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr and other social and business networking sites gaining so much momentum and popularity, people are suddenly discovering that the cloak of personal secrecy is quickly coming off of them. I know many people who are now confused on the new lines of demarcation between their professional, personal, and the super “OMG!!! TMI!!! LOL!!!type-personal” lives. What has happened to us is that our desire to be heard and validated has probably sneaked up and has gotten the best of us. Call it vanity or simply call it self-expression, the complete exposure of our lives (for those who choose to participate) is probably going to be with us for a while. So my suggestion would be to simply understand the oncoming reality and adjust our expectations accordingly. Think of all of these online exposure elements as a personal branding opportunity. Keep you LinkedIn strictly professional. Package your Facebook so that friends (and more and more of your business associates) can see both your silly side and your professional side. Hide, delete, or restrict your potentially embarrassing pics and videos. Keep Twitter very appropriate for any audience. But most importantly with the entire things is to have a common brand of authenticity that really speaks who you are. For me, I have made a conscious effort to be considerate of my audience(s) and I am taking the opportunity to be just ONE AUTHENTIC person. I use the same pic for all the locations to keep consistency. I have a liberating freedom now to simply be. No secrecy cloak for me. See what I mean at http://www.twitter.com/tomschulte and http://www.linkein.com/in/tommyland.
Chris – Common sense is often a byproduct of having thought things through. The twittersphere (and every-other-sphere) is littered with so many exceptions that it suggests what should be common sense is often, at best, unevenly applied.
Tom – I love this phrase, “The Authenticity Chicken has come home to roost.” If I had it to do over again, I might use that as a headline.
You made some great points. I especially enjoyed your matter-of-fact approach to the new reality as you explained how people can turn it to their advantage.
I agree with your first commenter Chris… it’s more about using common sense, regardless of the medium. A true story from when I was new in the business: I was with a colleague in the elevator going to a new biz meeting. I started to say something about the meeting to my colleague and he shut me up by quickly changing the subject. Turned out the third person in the elevator was one of the people we were about to meet with. I had almost learned a costly lesson in common sense back then.
“I had almost learned a costly lesson in common sense back then.”
David – I was in a similar situation a couple of years ago — also on an elevator — pertaining to a project that had been… problematic. Luckily, the person I directed my comments to had the foresight to gently shut me up.
I have restricted myself from Facebook. Maybe even to the detriment of my businesses. Within the past two months, my estranged wife created a Facebook account for socializing, trolling for companionship, and trashing me. Ouch! Seeing Facebook as a sharp object, I’d just as soon keep it out of HER hands.
Hi David -
Ouch, indeed!
I wonder… Since Facebook is not a closed-environment and you still have the freedom to join if you wish, are you now considering it as a means of gaining the ability to manage your own personal brand, or have you forsaken it forever?
Cam,
I went into social media and social networking with a business goal based on building relationships.
I believe that most of us business development, marketing and communications consultants are professional and qualified to offer cleint advice. Frankly, in my 30 years of hiring consultants when I was in the corporate world and now offering my services to businesses, I have found that to be mostly true. What differentiates us is how we relate to our clients and the ways in which we create great experiences.
With that said, I make every effort to be authentic 100% of the time I’m online so that when I reach out to someone or they reach out to me, their are no hidden personnas or agendas to concern ourselves with.
Be authentic, honest and polite and the rest takes care of itself.
Lewis – I agree. Trying to be too many versions of yourself just gives you too much to remember. Not worth the effort, in my opinion, but that opinion is entirely circumstantial.
I think this issue is especially hard for those of use who recently entered the professional world. When I joined Facebook, you were required to have a college email. So I never worried about my friends seeing my pictures or knowing what I was up to. But now, even my best friend’s mom has a Facebook profile, not to mention my CEO. If you are super concerned about who sees what on Facebook, change your privacy settings or better yet just email your drunken Halloween pictures to your friends (and tell them not to put the pics on Facebook).
“…change your privacy settings or better yet just email your drunken Halloween pictures to your friends”
Leigh Anne – Thank you. That is EXACTLY the sort of risk we take when we … well… what? Live, these days. Now, whether or not you have a Facebook profile or any other social media account, your image is at risk.
You never know who has a camera phone, but you can bet that in a large gathering, someone will, and those photos of you taking a hit off a bong (*COUGH*MichaelPhelps*COUGH*) may make their rounds whether you intended them to or not.
All the more reason, it seems, to foster a consistent, amenable persona no matter where you intend to hang your hat.
Adding to Lewis’s point – what is a problem here?
——————
Then David Reich documented the mistake of a businessman who made this post on Twitter: “True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I’d scratch my head and say ‘I’d rather die than live here.’”
The problem was, he was in town for a business meeting with a client …. FedEx …. and they caught wind of it and took offense.
———————
No problem actually. If you don’t like the town, you won’t do good projects there. Better for both to speak clearly about it from the start.
Whether you like it or not, when you have a profile on Facebook and many other social networks you should act as if you were visiting your mother. You never know who is going to find you and want to be a friend. You should be so lucky, if it is a client or prospect. You cannot stick your head in the business sand and miss these great business tools. So just act appropriate and save the shenanigans for live interactions or more restrictive messaging tools. If you want to be “yourself” then have at it. Just remember–
“What happens on the Internet, stays on the Internet… for everyone to see.”
Dusan – Preferably whether someone can do a good job is something both sides agree on at the outset, saving both companies a lot of wasted time, money, and heartache.
Harry – Great points. And even more poignant given the current state of the economy. You’re right. We should be so lucky if a client or prospect wants to connect with us personally — I’d say this is true even if they don’t want to do business with us. First, they might be nice people, and second, you never know to what opportunity it might lead.
It does go back to common sense. What is facinating to me is this blending of the personal and professional. I am often amazed that people post online and somehow think this is private.
Especially true among younger people. They are ok if their friends read and see their items on facebook, but their parents. “Mom! This is private, how could you!” Oh really, you post this for God and everyone to see and you think this is private.
I am all for transparancy. However, there is such a thing as “too much information.” It sort of ties into an article I read several months ago, stating that people looking for Doctors are now checking out Facebook. If the doctor shared about his wild drinking days in college, many folks are thinking, do I want a person who partied as much as it s/he did as my physician? ”
Things that make you go hummm.
Carol – You know… this has me thinking. We have a tendency to behave differently in different social environments. I wonder if sites like Facebook can do for public morality what the moralists never could, by forcing youngsters (and anyone, I guess) to view all of their actions through the lens of “What if the entire world saw this?”
Hm.
Or — cell phones might be banned as a condition of entry to a party/club.
The phrase “blended networks” is a great way to capture something that I’ve been trying to negotiate since I first started using social media, and which seems to have recently come to the fore (see also “Are you using Facebook and Twitter differently?” at http://blog.mrtweet.net/how-are-you-using-facebook-linkedin-twitter-differently?goback=.hom)
For me, the answer so far has been to use LinkedIn for business (obvious), and create two Twitter accounts, one protected (private) and the other not (public).
Up until now, I was keeping Facebook exclusively for friends and family, but as you noted, more and more people are using it as a sort of “more fun” LinkedIn. My solution there now is to use Facebook’s privacy settings to segregate business type contacts into a list that sees a very limited view of my profile. These folks can contact me, and see my work and educational info, but my status updates and photos are not visible. (In fact, we just did a post on managing your Facebook settings at my company’s blog: http://blog.cdginteractive.com/my_weblog/2009/02/controlling-your-facebook-privacy-settings.html)
We’re managing personal brands here and you have to remember that the internet is permanent.
_ LinkedIn is for professional networks among people I’ve worked with and know.
_ FaceBook is for personal networks. Limit it to people you know personally and consider friends and family.
_ Twitter can be used for entirely private or entirely public use (but not both!). I use it for public musings, rants, and idea sharing all with a lens of a professional networking endeavor that happens to have a very casual format.
No, I don’t tweet about my clients unless I’m sharing valuable public information.
Sorry to be catching this late.
Quickest, most-needed fix: Facebook (in particular) needs to make privacy settings more pervasive and easier to find/use. Most people don’t know they exist and FB does not make it easy to find and/or use them.
Controls have to be inward-facing- that is key. I should have no idea if you regard me as friend or work contact.
Plaxo made that mistake – allowing people to classify people as friend/work and it failed miserably. Why? Because say Joe, who I like, but really only know through work, tags me as a friend. Now I like Joe, so I don’t want to offend him and accept. But then I realize that I know Bob & Betty much better than I know Joe, so shouldn’t I call them friends too, and well, you get the picture.
In terms of what to put up there, I always go back to the lesson I was taught as a child: never discuss religion or politics in public. That said, many people do not have a good grasp on how to filter themselves, and that may indeed cause a great deal of trouble. But like many things, it’s a skill you can acquire with a bit of effort.
Park the technology. Forget the uniqueness of the medium. Stop hand wringing about how complex and difficult it is to navigate the interconnected world .
We just need to apply a bit of social common sense. Just because we can’t be seen when we type doesn’t mean we have are being private. The same social communication rules apply wether we are face to face, within listening distance, writing a letter or posting on-line.
Wake up to the illusion that work and home life are separate too. The split is all in the mind.
People need to be more circumspect with their opinions. Years ago I wouldn’t have dreamt about commiting an opinion to paper if there was a risk that it might be read by someone it wasn’t intended for.
You reap what you comment and you’d be gullible to think otherwise.
“I always go back to the lesson I was taught as a child: never discuss religion or politics in public.”
I was taught that. And for a good while, I even followed it. Then they became my two favorite subjects. I think it’s possible to maintain respect and decorum while discussing just about any topic, but it’s a skill that one must learn.
Offline principles should apply to online activity.
If you’re comfortable telling your co-workers that you went on a bender and slept with the neighbor’s wife, then the consequences will be the same whether you use the internet to broadcast your behavior, or if you blab it to a group around the water fountain.
Web 1.0 was all about anonymity. This gave rise to bad behavior and credibility issues – are you going to take business advice from MOONDOG162?
Web 2 is about credibility and transparancy. It’s simply an extension of your everyday life and activity – complete with consequences.
Just remember, you can’t scrub out stupid.