Be Careful What You Post!

Right now I'm teaching a course on Word of Mouth Marketing and Social Media at Seattle University and I shared an interesting case study from a year ago I wanted to share with you.

Are staff Facebook accounts theirs or yours? Before you answer consider this. I was speaking at a conference last year when a CEO suddenly pulled me out into the hall and said their business development person had posted something negative about that state's Governor's decision. She went on to say that the organization received a few hundreds thousand dollars each year in state funding and was worried about what would happen if the Governor heard about the post.

Now---is it the staff person's Facebook account or do you, as a marketer, have a right to say something?

SPEAK UP! I told the CEO to call the business development person and ask him to take the post off his personal Facebook account immediately. Is it his Facebook account? Yes. But when a staffer posts something that can harm the company/organization, you do have a right to ask them to take down the post otherwise your organization's reputation can be harmed.

Your thoughts or experiences on this issue?