Basic Rules for Any Form of Social Media Communication
Remember to use common sense when communicating
We hear the stories all the time. Someone posts something on social media and it leads to at the least a backlash and at most the end of a career.
You can search the internet for the extensive list of celebrities, executives, voice over artists, new hires and more who all lost their jobs because a bad tweet, voice mail, email or some other form of communication. In at least one case, not only did the employee lose his job, the company he worked for lost a major corporate account.
All of them seem to forget simple rules. I insist on them all the time: “Do not write or say anything that you do not want to see on the local news.”
This means, of course, to do or say anything you want, but make sure you can give an acceptable reason for it if it goes viral. If you cannot do this, then do not say it, do not write it, do not tweet it.
It is a simple rule and it is ancient, older than the internet by millennia. St. Paul in the New Testament writes that we should only say things that others need to hear (Eph 4). That does not mean it has to be nice all the time, but it must be good.
You can tell a joke that will make someone smile or you can exhort someone to change his or her appearance. One communication is nice and the other may not be, but both someone may need to hear. If it ends up going viral you can defend either expression.
The reason may not be so obvious but it is simple: You are not doing something to make you look good or funny or popular, you are doing something that will benefit another. You tell a joke to make me laugh. You make a stern statement to correct my annoying behavior.
Similarly, I can take messages that I create impulsively but not use them. I may write them down, wait on them overnight and then later, after I have calmed down, change them from what would appear offensive to a message that may express the same thing but not in hate speech.
Let’s take words in the same genre of those that cost an actor his job. “You people are the stupidest people on the planet.”
After losing his job, he admitted that he spoke impulsively. Had he waited twenty four hours, he could have stayed employed by speaking more appropriately than on the voicemail he left: “Clearly, your group and I have a total different understanding of what is a proper way to address this issue.” He could have used sarcasm or other expressions to drive home his point, but it would have not cost him his job.
In the edited expression, he calls no one stupid. The opinion is expressed in a factual manner that makes it clear where the speaker stands in light of the groups’ positions. Further, even though the original speaker and the receiver have two totally different perspectives on a topic, there is not a single word in that statement that is not true. No one can disprove it. They do have a totally different understanding of what is the proper way to address the issue.
The actor learned a lesson that I also teach to others. Any form of hate mail becomes a gift to the hated.
If you send an abusive communication, the recipient need do nothing more than post it somewhere either on the internet or even just on his or her office wall. Now your recipient simply uses your words to destroy your career and your life.
I remind people never to send hate mail, hate tweets or anything else for that reason. They become a gift to the recipient. There is nothing you can say except “I am sorry” as you clean out your desk.
The reason why that happens is that you expected the recipient to be more charitable than you were in sending the message. You felt the reader would keep the words private between you two. If you choose to be nasty in a message to someone, what is there to stop the person from being even more nasty in return by using your own words against you.
Unfortunately, many who forget this simple strategy find that the recipients not only used the writer’s own words against them, it turned out to be the winning move. You can do nothing but regret communicating the message in the first place.
In the example of the actor above, the recipient of the message just put the voice mail recording on the internet and it was game, set and match.
These three simple rules can keep you out of trouble
1. Never write or say anything that you do not want to see on the local news.
2. When you do say something, make sure you can defend it and people need to hear it.
3. Do not assume the recipient will keep your nasty private communication just between you two.
If you disobey these rules, do not be surprised that the recipient defeated you easily.
Following these rules may prevent you from the same fate that destroyed the careers of so many from CEOs to new hires, from actors to politicians.
