Social Media Mistakes
Small social media mistakes and day to day accidents happen in life, and at work, often amount to nothing. A misspelling here, a spilt cup of coffee there, no big deal. You may think of social media in the same way. Being a primarily informal arena, who cares if you make a mistake from time to time?
Well. unfortunately for those relying on social media for a job, these small social media mistakes can be very impactful indeed, some mistakes can even ruin your career.
It is kind of scary to examine some of the ramifications that can come with social media mistakes. We’re going to highlight a few things you need to be aware of, lest the same fate happens to you.
Swearing
Cuss words are a slippery slope online, to begin with. If you are appealing to an audience with that kind of language, it can be excusable, but it certainly isn’t advisable. Facebook and Twitter make it very easy to share content, so that language and content can very easily end up in front of the wrong eyes.
Taking things on to a personal level, employers are now using social media as an active background checker. If you are swearing non-stop, it is the equivalent of swearing in an interview. Furthermore, a swear word appearing on a corporate account can be a PR disaster. How would they sneak on there? Read on. . .
Tweeting from a corporate account
One way for unsavoury things to slip through the cracks is to try and juggle more than one account from the same device. Everyone is entitled to say and do what they want on their personal account (unless they are trying to land a job, of course), but if you also house a corporate account on the same laptop or phone, it can be very easy to mistake one for another.
There are several great examples of this online. From a social media manager getting fired for a cuss word littered rant about rush hour traffic, to the Red Cross apparently getting excited about getting drunk, it happens quite often. So try to have dedicated devices instead of crossing two over, and if the worst does happen, take a leaf out of the Red Cross’s book by dealing with the situation quickly and with good humour.
Unfortunate hashtags
If you are using a social media account professionally, there will come a time when you try to get something trending. The art of making something trend is notoriously tricky, not least because it is littered with potential potholes.
One you could fall into is an unfortunate hashtag. The singer Susan Boyle released an album a few years ago, and the PR team behind her came up with a hashtag-based around inviting people to the “Susan Album Party”. But in practice, #SusanAlbumParty is less than ideal, shall we say (read between the lines). You need to proofread these things and think of the potential outcomes, before launching them into the world.
Trolls
Ah, trolls, the internet mischief-makers. These are the people that try to get reactions from unwitting people via any means necessary, and they have a particular fondness for pranking corporate and high profile social media accounts. They’ll pose like a normal person, asking for a simple retweet or share for their Dad, who is a huge fan. But, as it turns out, the “Dad” in the picture is a murderer, and you now have a crisis on your hands. As with most things on this list – think before you do anything.
Insensitive tweets
Finally, whatever you do, don’t leave yourself open for attack. A lot of things, like trolls and mistakes, can be dealt with just by being cautious. What you shouldn’t do is get a respectable social media account together and then shoot yourself in the foot. Don’t post anything that could be seen as insensitive or insulting. For example, don’t think it is OK to use a national tragedy to try and sell spaghetti.
What are the worst social media mistakes you have seen?
