Social Media can sometimes backfire or get you into precarious situations. Most people have experienced some embarrassment in social media if they use it frequently. We’re going to dig through some great examples and present to you 5 studies to learn from so that we can avoid these mistakes ourselves.
1. Octavia Nasr who used to work for CNN was recently fired over a tweet. At 5:42am, on July 4th, Nasr posted a 106 character, politically charged tweet…
“Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.. One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot. #Lebanon”
The offending tweet generated a firestorm of criticism towards Nasr on Twitter! She replied with a blog to explain what she meant by this comment. The attention this comment generated was enough for CNN to part ways with a long time employee of 20 years. Politics + Social Media rarely mix. Don’t forget religion which this lovely woman managed to double up on in one tweet.
2. This example was quite humiliating and disciplinary action was brought forth. 3 TV anchors for a news station in Alabama were suspended over a new idea gone horribly wrong. This news station implemented a new idea where two, side by side billboards would display tweets as well as ads for the news station. A passing motorist happened to see the billboard at a very inopportune moment, and with the simple snap of a photo an unlikely scandal was born.
3. This is a popular example. A young woman added her boss as a friend on Facebook. Apparently the absent minded, social media enthusiast forgot that her boss was privy to her news stream. After a bad day at work she decided to let off a little steam via Facebook, and sure enough her boss sees the inflammatory remarks and leaves an epic reply for her. Had she taken some time to master the privacy settings on Facebook she could have possibly avoided this embarrassing disaster. Still I would not have taken the risk, because a co-worker or friend could have forwarded or shared the message with her boss.
4. Five people at a Hospital in California were disciplined for having social media discussions about patients. There’s not a whole lot of information on this article, but after reading it I’m left with the assumption that it was an unfortunate accident. Patient information is confidential, and although this is obvious to all of us – it might be something we could casually forget when we make conversation. Learn from their mistakes – every little detail has to be considered with your online presence.
5. In this example someone was offered a job at Cisco. Caught up in the excitement he tweeted about his job offer, but left some damning remarks in the tweet. This is what he said…
“Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.”
“TheConnor” wasn’t aware that Cisco was monitoring the Twitter airwaves and decided to let him know what they thought of his tweet. Here is the reply…
“Who is the hiring manager. I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web.”
Shortly after the Cisco reply “TheConnor” changed all of his tweets to private, and I think it’s safe to assume he decided not to work at Cisco.
6. Let’s try the shoe out on the other foot so to speak. Right here we have a company (Nestle) that was the offending social media perp. After some angry protesters (angry about Nestle’s lack of eco-friendly policy) wore altered Nestle Logos as Facebook profile pictures – the Nestle Fan page admin oozed a little venom with the response.
Some of the best advice I could give is to always master your privacy controls. This will not always be a 100% fail safe so always remember that some things are better left unposted.
