How Not to Use Twitter

The immediacy of tools like Twitter make it easy to just throw your thoughts out into the world, without any forethought or filtering. It can make for some really funny tweets. Or extreme moments of embarrassment.

Everyone, even longtime professionals, can have moments of frustration or a need to “vent” to someone. But when you are upset, you must tread carefully. Once you send it out there, you can’t take it back. Deleting won’t help. Once you hit update, that’s it. All of your followers, friends, coworkers, and even enemies will see your verbal vomiting. And then what do you do?

Take author Alice Hoffman for example. Upset with a review from Roberta Silman of The Boston Globe, Hoffman wrote a scathing tweet, blasting Silman for her intellect and even posting a phone number and email for fans to “Tell her what u think of snarky critics.”

The entire scene took place over the weekend and by Monday Hoffman had deleted her Twitter account. While Hoffman felt the situation was blown out of proportion, we’re not so sure. Calling someone a moron is a little harsh, even if she did give away part of the plot. People with a large platform like Hoffman should realize that their bad behavior will be broadcast across the internet. And posting someone’s phone and email is just poor form.

You do have to take a moment and think about the repercussions of your tweets. If you wouldn’t say it in person, should you say it on Twitter? What you consider innocuous could change the public’s view of your business and that’s bad for your marketing.

Have you done anything on Twitter (or Facebook or MySpace) that you later were embarrassed about? Do you think that irresponsible behavior could cost you business? Has it?

source: NYT

image: Mattox via sxc.hu