Be careful what you say on social media.
I know, you’ve heard this before. But it really is true.
First of all, when you put something out there on social media, it never really goes away.
And secondly, you could really, really hurt someone (personal or business) with your ‘share’.
I’ve seen many people get emotional and rant about various things. I’ve seen people overshare (I love that word!) and I’ve seen people say things they later come to regret.
But here’s the thing. When you put something out there, if anyone shares it, you run the risk of it staying online forever. Even if you come back to delete it from your own profile.
We learned that this week with a situation of one of my clients, a local restaurant. They had someone write a bad review on their Facebook page. There had been an incident where the woman felt she had been treated unfairly at the restaurant for a choice she made (the details are unimportant, although the story did make the national news across the country – you can Google ‘Manotick Diaper’ if you are interested).
So she left a bad review and then she invited her friends and family to do the same. To sully the reputation of the restaurant because she had a disagreement with the owner and she thought he deserved to be shamed. Imagine. (I actually just can’t!)
The restaurant apologized publicly that she felt she had been treated badly but held their view that her decision had been wrong. And then they said nothing more about the incident.
This was not good enough for this woman, and she kept at it online until she finally called the media into it last week.
Her steps there backfired in a big way, as she (figuratively) got beat up online, with support for the restaurant way outnumbering her own support. In fact, the responses to her were scathing and hurtful and even mean (which I also don’t support, but again, social media is open to everyone).
She eventually deleted the comments she had made on her own Facebook, but they are still out there and people are still responding to her on that thread, because it has been shared in a lot of different places, and it will forever be online. She can’t escape the story anymore. But she is, as they say in the playground, ‘the one who started it’.
The lesson here is not who is right or wrong – and it’s not even about controlling your emotions online – but it’s about really KNOWING that what you put out there could potentially stay there forever. And if it’s something that people could potentially get upset, angered, or hurt by, then you really need to think twice about where you are posting it (or responding to it, as the case may be).
If you are complaining about a client, or a colleague, or a local business, it’s always necessary to be careful what you say. It could come back to hurt you more than it hurts them.
Social media’s biggest advantage is just that. Everyone can see it, everyone is able to comment on it and share it.
I caution you to take care when you decide to put anything out there. In this case things worked out exceptionally well for my client, because they got overwhelming support (400 new FB page likes, and 1,000s and 1,000s of positive and reassuring comments, and a story in their favour that went national across the country). But it could have gone the other way very, very easily.
The point is that social media is so powerful that you truly don’t know which way something might go. Who is online? Who has access to this? Who might share it, and how big is that group of support? And how strong are their views about the subject?
So before posting anything, I would urge you to think about who could be hurt by what you are saying. It truly could have cost this restaurant their business. We are thankful that it did not, but it’s absolute proof that community is EVERYTHING. Our community stepped up in an incredible way to support the restaurant, and not this woman who was hell bent on destroying their reputation over something that was just a bad decision on her part.
To me social media is simply for staying connected, having fun with people I know or meet, and keeping up with what is going on in our vast world. I wish everyone else used it that way too.