Social and Professional – Different?

Christopher Cornell of Sci-Tech Today is writing an interesting piece on how employers must have social media policies. He starts out with reminiscing about the Domino’s Pizza case where two employees videoed themselves doing nasty stuff to food, and then uploading it to YouTube. I reckon it is self-explanatory that if you do something disgusting or illegal while wearing the brand’s uniform, displaying it through an open medium it will generate negative buzz and damage the brand. You don’t need any policies against that. It is like having policies against robbing banks while wearing your McDonald’s uniform.

However, Cornell also talks about how your own Social Media appearance reflects the brand. As many companies have Social Media profiles, their employees are the ones representing that profile online:

“I’ve found that social networking has blurred the line between one’s professional and personal life. For example, if I want a sales person to invite all of his professional contacts to our Facebook fan page, I need him to have a Facebook profile. Once, his profile appears on our corporate fan page, I may click on his profile.”

This of course means that as your personal on-line space is merging with your employers, you will more and more take your work with you home, and your ability to clock out will no longer be as apparent.

“I cannot control how he represents himself, but I can tell you that it isn’t the most professional representation of one’s self if his personal life is posted all over his profile.”

Social Media is making our lives a lot easier and gives us more freedom, but it is also limiting our autonomy. If my Facebook profile is linked to my employer’s, prospect customers will be able to in detail see what people are representing the brand, and the line between the professional and social person is becoming less defined.

Update 22/09/2009: