The Granny Test for Twitter

Posted on September 8, 2009 by Rob Radcliff

                                                            

Over the past few months Twitter has exploded.  It's everywhere, from Best Buy advertisements to Lance Armstrong's updates during the Tour de France.  Twitter has 23 million users and 54% of Fortune 100 companies have some Twitter presence.  The point is, Twitter is not going away in the near future nor is social media. 

For some reason people have a hard time remembering that employers, prospective employers, friends, enemies, and worst of all lawyers are monitoring social media.  Individuals are creating an on line biography on a daily basis.  In the future, candidates for public office and prospective supreme court justices will have to account for wayward tweets and Facebook posts.  Take a look at these examples of off- color tweets from Mark Toth at manpowerblogs.com:

•“hate my job!! i want to tell my bosses how dumb they are and how meaningless this job is, then quit, and be happy!”
•“with my boss on twitter, maaaybe I should take down that sexy picture of her . . . but her reaction will be priceless!”
•“so my job was to test all the food at the new restaurant, can I just say, ughew. I’m going to taco bell . . .”
•“smoking weed at work is so [expletive deleted] great ”
•“I’m really bummed that I’m working today, i asked off so i could study but my boss is a [expletive deleted] who can’t read.”
•“Coworker smuggled out a chair for me. Currently being paid to SIT around . . . I don’t hate my job today!”

Ridiculous, right?  Individuals need their own self-imposed media policies. I propose a simple one in honor of my Granny who had her birthday over the weekend. If you would feel uncomfortable having Granny read you tweet, Facebook post, or blog entry, don't post it. Game, set, match. 

 

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Tweets and the SEC

Posted on April 28, 2009 by Rob Radcliff

                                          

An article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal focused on corporations use of Twitter and scrutiny of Tweets by the SEC.  The article identified the rub between corporate transparency and SEC compliance:

Blogs and tweets can run afoul of Securities and Exchange Commission regulations on corporate communications. But sanitizing such posts risks hurting credibility with online audiences.
 

Some companies are still hesitant to allow their employees to address investor issues online:

 Intel Corp. in May will be among the first companies to allow shareholders to ask questions via the Web and vote online during its annual meeting. But the chip maker avoids blogs and Twitter for investor issues, because it fears violating SEC disclosure rules or inviting public criticism in a company-hosted forum, says Kevin Sellers, vice president of investor relations.

"There's always going to be a person with an axe to grind," he says. "Do we really want to sponsor that?"

The article goes on to suggest that employers have appropriate social-media policies (as discussed here previously) and use appropriate disclaimers.  Ironically, the SEC is now on Twitter.

On a lighter note, below is an instructional video on Facebook manners:

 

 

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