Even Positive Tweets (& EVERYTHING ELSE) Are Scrutinized!

I learned a valuable lesson yesterday. My office, or branch, had the pleasure of hosting Fred, one of our company’s Executive Vice Presidents yesterday. We are a major, national company and it was a very unusual occurrence for him to come visit our little ol’ branch.

As we wrapped up the morning’s discussion, we were stretching and discussing where to go for lunch and Fred said, “So, when we get to lunch I want to talk with you about your tweets.”

Huh?! All the blood rushed from my head and my jaw hit the floor. Now please understand that I’m a “positive kind o’ guy.” I’ve intentionally used my real name, instead of a cute online handle, and my company was intentionally listed in my bio’s and online profiles. (Notice the “was”?) I’ve gone out of my way to keep company and customer specifics out of any tweet about the operational aspects of my days, so as not to compromise anything confidential. The only times I recall mentioning the company name were in response to complaints people tweeted that I tried to solve and trying to promote a national sale or sales campaign.

We spent most of lunch talking – and laughing – about social networking and all our experiences – and mishaps – with them. While I knew our corporate office had an “online awareness” and my mentions of the company would probably pop up on somebody’s radar screen, I had not considered that even if I am always positive and trying to be “helpful,” what I say would be questioned and analyzed.

My take-away from that lunch? Lots of laughs…and a new appreciation for how closely AND how easily ANYBODY can track what you say! Remember that you can never pull something back once you’ve let it out on the Information Highway. Pictures, posts, comments, tweets, statuses, everything is out of your control once you push it onto the Internet.