Social Media Stupidity: The Fine Line Between Detrimental and Necessary

How exceedingly annoying is it when you cannot find a long-time acquaintance on Facebook despite knowing he or she has an account? And how much worse is it when you learn the reason you cannot find that person is not due to Facebook’s admittedly sketchy, sometimes-illogical search algorithm but because that person has bastardized his own name? Kevin Taylor is Kev Vin. Julia Smith is Julie Yah. Michelle Walters goes by her middle name.

No one should have any regrets about portraying oneself as he wants to be portrayed on social media, but, in most cases, Jenny Roberts does not truly see herself as Jen Knee. She simply wants to stay under the radar—often because she is either in the process of applying for a job or because she does not want her existing coworkers and clients to locate her.

On the one hand, it is easy to sympathize with those who hide their identities on Facebook. For decades, employers hired individuals with little to no knowledge of their personal lives. Now, superbly-qualified individuals have to fear that their Facebook profiles will signal sluttiness, creepiness, nerdiness or drunkenness to employers who, in reality, are probably just as rowdy or weird in their private lives.

On the other hand, there is a common sense counterargument—if one is so concerned about the content on his social media profile that he needs to hide it from the world, perhaps he needs to re-evaluate what he is posting online (and, in general, how he behaves in his personal life).

Ultimately, the situation speaks to a greater dilemma facing employers and employees as social continues to become the dominant force in both personal and professional communication—how human is too human?

One of the most simple, commonly-touted "best practices" for social media is to avoid coming off like a corporate robot. Those interacting with customers should be recognizable as actual personalities, not simply "Brand_Official." And regardless of the account being used, the discourse should be organic and believable; in most circumstances, one communicating as a marketer, as a customer service representative or simply as an indirect brand ambassador should present himself as someone who completely "gets" the end-user experience rather than as a lifeless machine fluent only in PR speak.

And yet for as much as businesses know humanity is the right approach and might even directly advise their employees to be "real" on social, their actual media policies—whether established in formal writing or simply by the executive culture—say something different. They strive for a humanity that is perfectly-suited to their interests and, thus, not actually "human."

In Seinfeld’s season three episode "The Truth," characters deal with the hurtful side of honesty—first, George drives his ex-girlfriend to a nervous breakdown by sharing the true motivation for their breakup. Then, George feels the pain when Elaine shares her true opinion of his frugality, resulting in his declaration (and realization), "You should have lied." As it turns out, the demand for truth is predicated on the fantasy that it will not be an affront to one’s character.

With social media, organizations know their brand is best positioned to benefit when their employees represent themselves as actual people to customers, but they either forget about or delude themselves into ignoring the reality that humans inevitably do stupid things, especially when not in the office, and thus can never be perfect brand ambassadors. They don’t realize that in order to be around-the-clock, folksy, charming corporate representatives, many individuals will require a certain degree of disarmament—they cannot be true humans if they do not feel free to make some mistakes as their true selves.

Certainly, the actual person or persons responsible for corporate social media accounts should exercise the same—if not more due to the public visibility of the communication—scrutiny and PR-friendly practicality exercised by call center and complaint counter representatives. Reps for companies like Chrysler should not "fucking" insult their audiences on Twitter. Red Cross workers should not get "slizzerd" on company time. By no means is the "devil’s advocate" logic of this commentary meant to suggest that companies should feel any obligation to broadcast or tolerate marketing embarrassments.

It is, however, pondering whether the expectation that all employees and potential employees can behave perfectly-responsibly, cogently and sensibly, particularly on their private social networks, is a sustainable and realistic one. If it is not, employers need to fully understand the chilling effects of either enforcing robotic rigidity or tolerating stumbling humanity.

A recent Information Week article on "10 Social Networking Posts That Sink Careers" highlighted some obvious social blunders that not even the most anti-corporate, uninterested-in-employability individual could possibly justify. No one in the brief history of social media has ever become "cool" by sharing how wasted he is, and no one should ever think it is acceptable to share confidential merger details (or even reference a confidential merger) on a Facebook account. Even when regarding private social accounts, companies should not have to tolerate utter stupidity in the name of "humanity."

But in simultaneously identifying stiff comments like "thank you for your comment, we appreciate your business" as blunders, the article simultaneously reveals why a level of balance and tolerance is absolutely necessary. Blatant racism, sexism and sharing of private corporate details can greatly hurt a brand’s reputation and are never okay, but the occasional off-color joke or self-deprecating bit about a company, its competitors and its staff can often be exactly what it takes to humanize a brand—and its employees—in a way that creates lasting social relationships with prospective and existing customers. They can provide customer-friendly protection against damaging publicity and can also prove instrumental in attracting recruiting talent who want to work for an organization that values a fun, light-hearted culture.

Most importantly, by extending tolerance beyond what would be permissible in a formal press release, brands (in addition to keeping employees happy) keep their ambassadors in the correct mindset for customer engagement. A brand like Nintendo would allow its employees to come off like actual Nintendo fans, rather than as entities simply trying to profit off others’ love for video games. When it comes time to build relationships with customers, who is more valuable?

With regulations and consequences often bigger than the "grumpy boss’ opinion" at play, businesses should absolutely lay out guidelines, best practices and rules of engagement for employees’ social conduct. And they should absolutely hold employees accountable for comments, photos and videos—even on personal accounts—that bring direct damage to the brand’s reputation.

But if human, personal, "real" social engagement is accepted as a net good, businesses need to remain conscious of the fact that not every human interaction is going to read like a quote from the corporate mission statement or its formal marketing material.

And so a business has to choose—would it rather accept the occasional blunder or controversy associated with "human" social interactions? Or, would it rather keep everything PR-friendly to assure there is no risk of brand embarrassment or detriment?

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