Mixing Business with Pleasure

Warnings against making personal information public via social media platforms abound. Recruiters tell college students not to put their spring break photos up online because it may cost them a future job. Employers hand out mandates about not letting their staff use social media platforms at work. The problem is, they are not telling the whole story. It’s actually all about whether you use your powers for good or evil.

A vice president from an advertising agency visited their client, FedEx, at its headquarters in Memphis, TN. Assuming that the agency rep was from New York or Chicago, as most advertising reps are, what would be his first impression upon arriving in the town that is home to Graceland? Imagine the culture shock when going from the chilly hustle and bustle of Manhattan to the sultry, slow, and spread out lands of the swampy south. Thanks to a web site where anyone can read anything that you want to write (Twitter.com), we don’t have to imagine. Mr. VP put his inner most thoughts right up there for the world to see. “Wondering if I would die if I had to live here.”

To those of us who appreciate a cynical sense of humor, this was extremely entertaining. Stereotypes a-plenty fill the scenes of this situation, which was summarized well in 140 characters or less. Fedex was not so pleased, as they were paying this person to improve their image and such a comment would do the opposite. While I can understand why Fedex would be upset, I don’t think they should overreact. Mr. VP, however, should rethink his job description and separate his business from his pleasure.

Some companies, large and small, old and new, are still terrified of social media. They don’t understand it and are more afraid of the damage it can do than the good it can bring. Mr. VP should have known Fedex’s true feelings about this medium. That’s his job. What he should also have known is that people should leave the bad news to the journalists. Major news networks get paid to deliver the negative, sad, and unprecedented downswing headlines.

If everyone used social media to only report good news, comment on positive things, confess how much they “loooove Memphis,” American corporations would warm up to it much faster, like an accelerated glacier instead of a regular paced one. Posting anything about yourself where the general public (and clients and employers) can view it, remains a gamble. It’s so easy to be a communicator for a specific audience in your personal life. Your friends have your sense of humor, or at least appreciate it. Your clients or your boss? …not so much. The next time Mr. VP thinks about Twittering a comment from his handy iPhone, I hope he remembers that posting personal comments online is like the dirty joke the boyfriend told his girlfriend, which was really funny – right up until her dad walked in and didn’t laugh.