Caution, caution: Social media can be dangerous territory
AirCargo archive stories issue 234
Thursday, 29 January 2015
Brisbane coffee king and philanthropist Phillip Di Bella is a man with strong passions. So when he disagreed with the referee and commentators during the second 2014 State of Origin game he reacted strongly. On Twitter.
It was spur of the moment stuff and he quickly apologised. But the words were on record and had been read extensively and retweeted. A media website published them, too, along with earlier Facebook comments on welfare.
Di Bella was stripped of his Telstra Queensland Business of the Year Award, bestowed the day before his Twitter rant. (He’d also been appointed chair of Brisbane’s CBD Development Board on the day of the game.)
It wasn’t all bad news. Lots of people supported him, including premier Campbell Newman. And he later sold his coffee business for mega bucks. But that moment of e-rage could have destroyed him.
Unwise use of social media has certainly affected many other businesses.
When you tweet, you’re going on record. Usually without much thought and with no peer review, such as might likely happen on a corporate Facebook page.
Social media provides wonderful opportunities for sales, marketing, personal interaction, information, fast-breaking news and useful comment. but on the other side of the ledger are daily outrage, real or forced, plus irrelevance, time wasting, nastiness.
Wellington blogger, biologist and author Danyl Mclauchlan generated supportive feedback when he posted recently he’d been off Twitter for a few weeks to “free up some mental space”. This made him realise that “somewhere along the way Twitter became completely awful and not constantly exposing myself to – and participating in – this endless cacophony of advertising-soaked, shrill, mean-spirited outrage is a wonderful experience”.
Are your staff wasting their time on Twitter or the other social media channels, posting about their morning’s sandwich purchase or following the mindless activities of somebody ‘famous for being famous’?
Worse, are they or others saying something inaccurate about your company? And have you shot off your mouth about another forwarder, airline staffer, Customs broker or Customs officer?
Corporate Facebook pages can be a boon for keeping customers up to date on services, news (yours or other things you feel would be useful to share) and even CSR activities, sponsorships or whatever. Plus a light-hearted graphic or two. As long as there’s a peer review system of sorts in place.
And as we’ve commented before, there’s nothing sadder than a Facebook page left to languish, the last cobwebby post months before.
Nothing sadder? Well maybe a semi-abandoned web site could eclipse it.
- Kelvin King
Caution, caution: Social media can be dangerous territory
AirCargo archive stories issue 234
Thursday, 29 January 2015
Brisbane coffee king and philanthropist Phillip Di Bella is a man with strong passions. So when he disagreed with the referee and commentators during the second 2014 State of Origin game he reacted strongly. On Twitter.
It was spur of the moment stuff and he quickly apologised. But the words were on record and had been read extensively and retweeted. A media website published them, too, along with earlier Facebook comments on welfare.
Di Bella was stripped of his Telstra Queensland Business of the Year Award, bestowed the day before his Twitter rant. (He’d also been appointed chair of Brisbane’s CBD Development Board on the day of the game.)
It wasn’t all bad news. Lots of people supported him, including premier Campbell Newman. And he later sold his coffee business for mega bucks. But that moment of e-rage could have destroyed him.
Unwise use of social media has certainly affected many other businesses.
When you tweet, you’re going on record. Usually without much thought and with no peer review, such as might likely happen on a corporate Facebook page.
Social media provides wonderful opportunities for sales, marketing, personal interaction, information, fast-breaking news and useful comment. but on the other side of the ledger are daily outrage, real or forced, plus irrelevance, time wasting, nastiness.
Wellington blogger, biologist and author Danyl Mclauchlan generated supportive feedback when he posted recently he’d been off Twitter for a few weeks to “free up some mental space”. This made him realise that “somewhere along the way Twitter became completely awful and not constantly exposing myself to – and participating in – this endless cacophony of advertising-soaked, shrill, mean-spirited outrage is a wonderful experience”.
Are your staff wasting their time on Twitter or the other social media channels, posting about their morning’s sandwich purchase or following the mindless activities of somebody ‘famous for being famous’?
Worse, are they or others saying something inaccurate about your company? And have you shot off your mouth about another forwarder, airline staffer, Customs broker or Customs officer?
Corporate Facebook pages can be a boon for keeping customers up to date on services, news (yours or other things you feel would be useful to share) and even CSR activities, sponsorships or whatever. Plus a light-hearted graphic or two. As long as there’s a peer review system of sorts in place.
And as we’ve commented before, there’s nothing sadder than a Facebook page left to languish, the last cobwebby post months before.
Nothing sadder? Well maybe a semi-abandoned web site could eclipse it.
Unwise use of social media has certainly affected many other businesses.
