Be Careful Little Hands What You Tweet

I’ve been lucky enough to speak to a number of audiences on social media issues. I have one coming up on March 16, as a matter of fact. One of the items I discuss is the need for companies to have a social media policy, and the need to recognize that the time space continuum has been radically altered. That is a fancy way of saying that it really doesn’t matter when an employee tweets or where that employee happens to be when the tweet goes out. If it concerns company business, the company can be liable for the content. Case in point, National Media Strategies recently lost the Chrysler account, thanks to one of its employees, who used the “f word” in a tweet from the @ChryslerAutos account. There’s probably not going to be legal consequences here (unless an NMS higher up murders the employee) but it illustrates the point. A social media policy cannot overcome stupidity. But the education process that should be a part of the policy’s rollout might help. Although in the NMS employee’s defense, it is a bit ironic that a company that uses Eminem as its spokesman fires an agency for dropping the f bomb.