This past week I learned a lot about Marshall McLuhan. He is best known for the “medium is the message” quotation, however I found this one interesting and relevant to the ongoing discussion on social media, “Publication is a self-invasion of privacy.” Marshall McLuhan. It seems that he was predicting today’s society and the merging of the public and private sphere. I am an active user of Facebook, I don’t give away any personal details I wouldn’t share in my “real” life. However there have been many cases where people have been fired over something they said (posted) online.
This is a video about Dan Leone who said he was fired from Lincoln Financial Field after expressing his opinion on Facebook about being upset a free-agent was not chosen (his own preference, which he thought was private from his employer).
We do have a choice about what we post on Facebook, and should realize our profile can impact our career in a negative way (especially in public relations, which is focused on reputation). The once private is now very public.
Thinking about this another way, all of the personal details we choose to share on Facebook and other social networking sites are a online marketers dream! There is often no need to conduct market research when your target public are already willingly pre-established into distinct groups.
Facebook is being open and honest saying they are allowing advertising, however there is not much information about peronalization of ads yet.
I have noticed lately that my Facebook ads seem to be very targeted specifically to me. For example, I Googled shoes in Sydney and the same day was bombarded with ads for shoes in Sydney on Facebook… coincidence?
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I´m a new member of facebook since last Thursday and I have to admit, that I was really trying to avoid it. I didn´t want to put my profile on another portal as I already have memberships in a similar but small German friends portal and a business network platform called xing.com.
ReplyDeleteI was asking myself: Is it worth following facebook? And I absolutely agree with what you say: facebook and all the other similar platforms are a way of expressing privacy to the public. The major point is: Not to a specific but to the whole public. Critics even say it is a new disgraceful mixture of voyeurism and exhibitionism.
In my eyes, the problem is that particularly young people don´t take the Internet seriously enough. If a comment or a photo is once published, it is hard to delete the content on the entire internet. You will never know, even if you erased the information on your profile, who has already downloaded your videos or pictures and uploaded them somewhere else. So, it is absolutely necessary to think carefully about what info you want to share on the net and to bear in mind, that not only your friends but your future boss might see it. A short Google search for "facebook fired job" had 135, 000, 000 page results. According to this Dan Leone is not a rarity. I found a list of things you should do (or not do) in online venues like facebook:
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/management/how-to-avoid-getting-fired-by-facebook.html
I was convinced becoming a facebook member as you can see. Why? Ok, first: Obama is on facebook:-). What else? I guess, for us as future PR experts it is more than important to use social media channels in order to share information. And third: if you love travelling, as I do, it´s a good medium to stay in contact with your family and friends but also with the new people you meet on your way.
We have the same situation back at home. At the height of national disaster, some people still managed to update their status of frustrations and assumptions. So now it leads to the question, when do we exercise the freedom of speech? How do we use the social media to its potential without abusing it? While others see Facebook as a means to communicate through friends and family, some use it even to destroy reputation.
ReplyDeleteHow do PR experts deal with issues like this?
See the link about -- Prominent blogger slings mud at Red Cross Chairman at height of relief operations
http://pinoybiz.blogspot.com/2009/10/prominent-blogger-slings-mud-at-red.html