Know When to Keep Your Mouth Shut.
My whole blog thus far, I have been chatting about how crucial conversation and interaction is in corporate communications. However, there are some instances when it is better to hold your tongue.
Make sure when you are tweeting, blogging, facebooking, whatever, that you have a conversational tone, but that you are also not rude. An individual from Ketchum PR posted a tweet for FedEx about Memphis, TN that was found to be offensive and was noticed by the company’s communication department. Peter Shankman wrote about this on his blog, cautioning readers to be mindful of what they are posting. A commenter on Shankman’s post could commiserate, stating that she had lost her job due to her blog.
This commenter was definitely not the first to be “dooced,” which means losing one’s job due to one’s web site. The term was coined by Heather Armstrong after the same happened to her. Armstrong gives advice to her readers also, urging them to not be “stupid” about what they write.
Mark Jen, is another unfortunate example of a blogger who was “dooced” by Google for sharing too much internal company information, says “The Dark Side of Blogging” by Paul Chin. To avoid the leaking of company information and legal issues, Chin gives guidelines on how to regulate corporate bloggers without stifling the voice of the writer.
Companies can be proactive in giving corporate bloggers training on what to say and what to keep private. You might think it’s common sense, but enough people have been “dooced” to prove otherwise.
~ by Annie Blewett on April 3, 2009.
Posted in Social Media in Public Relations, blogs
Tags: Blogging, legal issues
Hey Annie, this was a great post. I laughed when I read the title because it’s true: you have been writing about when to “join the conversation” so this post stuck out. I think that “when to keep your mouth shut” is an important issue to address given that everything seems to be “talk more!” “communicate more!” nowadays. I also read about the employee in Memphis and it reminded me of the dangers of social networking. It’s great, but people need to know their boundaries.
Right. There are definitely times when saying too much can have a counter-effect and become harmful to the communications process. Just because the tone is conversational doesn’t mean it in the context of loose lips. Loose lips sink ships and that’s exactly what happened to these people who got dooced. There’s a fine line between being open about your company and being too open to the point where it could hurt the reputation or profit margin.
Annie,
This post offers great advice to users of new social media. Be conversational, but also professional. Since social media tools are fairly new, it may be difficult for company employees to learn their corporate blogging boundaries. Companies should develop guidelines for employees to follow for an external or internal blog; but employees must also professionally represent their company if it is mentioned on their own personal blog.
Your examples of employees being ‘dooced’ should serve as a warning to current employees who may be tempted to misrepresent their company. Employees should always keep in mind that one negative comment could reach thousands of online readers, and devalue a corporate identity.