SCOUT Corporate Blogging Services

January 2009

When Mixing Business with Twitter and Facebook Remember What Mom Always Says

Remember how your mom always said, 'if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all'? James Andrews, an executive vice president from Ketchum PR is wishing he heeded those words while twittering about his recent trip to Memphis. The story is titled How Not to be a Key Online Influencer, is covered responsibly by David Henderson on his blog. I think that this story is destined to be a cautionary tale that social media communications experts are sure to be adding into their Power Point presentations right after the slide titled "Kryptonite Blogging Fiasco".

To summerize... Andrews flew to Memphis to visit FedEx, one of his agency’s biggest clients. On his arrival in Memphis he published a tweet (a short post on Twitter.com) that said "True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say, ‘I would die if I had to live here.”.  The tweet was quickly discovered by someone at Fedex that was 'following' Andrews on Twitter and resulted in a scathing written admonishment from the FedEx Corporate Communications team and I'm sure very cloudy home coming at Ketchum in Atlanta. Wanna get away? BTW in Twitter a Follower is like a Friend on Facebook. A Follower can see the tweets of the other people they are following.

In a world of sugar coated PR and glossy lofty corporate sentiments, I always find it refreshing when someone can eloquently speak their mind while being critical but not come off looking like a kermudgen. The masters can walk away with thought leadership and respect and possibly a few enemies. This is a very important skill for food or movie critics and bloggers alike. Many would say that open / casual discussion is what makes social media so important and popular. While a good zinger among friends and controversy keeps things interesting, and a good restaurant or product review is helpful to the consumer, when it's done on a social media setting like Twitter or Facebook it can be a very risky practice. There's a fine line between being critical or just poking fun and being insulting and dumb.

Now, I will admit to sympathizing with Andrews. In my own experience with blogging and Facebook i have found that these publishing tools can lull me, a multitasking type -- into a false sense of obscurity. Just like people mis speak, I can mis-tweet or mis-facebook, or mis-blog comment. Sometimes it's a typo because the text is so small. Sometimes I publish before I'm finished out of disgust, or publishing late at night after a glass of wine.

The Ketchum fiasco is not the first case of professional stupidity on the internet and it will not be the last. Social Media publishing tools offer otherwise responsible professionals and companies the noose in which to hang our selves. Does it mean we should not embrace them or close off our companies to social media all together? No, of course not. It simply means that companies now and in the future need to get serious about making social media best practices part of their business rather than an obscure interest managed by one or two folks or 'the agency'. Also,  companies need to put social media education right up there with the other major topics in the employee handbook.

Notes: Thanks to Debbie Weil for bringing this story to my attention via Facebook.

[Added January 26, 2009 at 12:43 PM:] Scout Blogging / Backbone Media produced Corporate Guidelines for Using Blogs and Forums a few years ago but I believe that they are still pertinent  today.

Tags: facebook, Fedex, Ketchum, Memphis, PR, twitter
Filed under: Blogging Tips