Your social media presence and your PR job hunt

Image from www.wycliffecollege.ca

Ask (almost) anyone in PR these days whether you should have an active presence on social media if you're looking for a job in the industry, and they'll say "yes."

While not every PR job uses social media at this point, most employers want to hire people who keep up with advances in the ways people communicate. After all, if and when their audiences "get there," they want to be ready.

So, get online -- that's the message.

But how much does it matter what you say?

More than you might think.

I've had a couple of interesting conversations recently with people who've discussed this topic with other people, whose position is that they should be able to say whatever's on their mind on social media.

"I shouldn't have to edit myself -- social media is for expressing yourself."

"An employer has no right to hold my opinions against me if I'm otherwise qualified for a job."

Strictly speaking, that's true (within reason). But it's important to remember the importance of context.

It's a fact that we all have the right to free speech (as long as it isn't hate speech). But it's also a fact that most hiring managers do online searches of job candidates -- and that they make judgments based on what they find.

Just as an employer may decide you're not cut out for her corporate office if you show up for your interview dressed for a nightclub, she may make assumptions about your professionalism based on what she finds in your social media footprint.

The online search doesn't take much time -- and if the employer finds you posting things she feels reflect poor personal judgment (e.g. trash-talking current or former employers or clients; expressing discriminatory opinions; appearing to prioritize drinking/drug use over professionalism, etc.), she might just save herself the effort of going any further with the application.

This doesn't usually extend to expressing yourself politically: most employers (unless they are political parties or affiliated organizations) are unlikely to decide against hiring the right person because of their leanings to the right or to the left. (And if they are, you might want to consider carefully whether you want to work for them anyway.)

But if your social media "brand" communicates "I'm a loose cannon" or "I value partying over anything else" or "I discriminate against people for [insert reason here]," that says something to an employer.

It says "I'm going to be difficult to manage, and I may create problems for the organization both internally and externally."

Think before you post

Just remember: anything you post to social media is "out there" and can be found by a potential employer.

Do you have a right to express yourself? Yes, you do.

Does the employer have the right to choose job candidates based on her own judgement? You bet she does.

If you're looking for work (in PR or anywhere), what the employer perceives trumps everything else. It won't matter what the circumstances were behind that series of tweets or Facebook messages or blog posts -- you may never be given the opportunity to explain the context for a posting that casts you in an undesirable professional light.

You might send joking tweets which your friends know to be sarcastic -- but if a potential employer sees those tweets without knowing the context, they could lead to incorrect conclusions about your values and professionalism.

Those incorrect conclusions could cost you a job interview... and you might never know what put you out of the running for a job you wanted.

Want credibility? Credit your sources!

At Red River College, where I teach public relations and freelance business management, we have strict rules around academic integrity and honesty. We're in the business of training future professionals here, and professional integrity is at the core of success in any field -- especially PR.

Presenting someone else's ideas as your own is plagiarism, and it's not treated lightly in academia. Here at Red River, students caught plagiarizing others' work can be flunked out of a course and/or suspended from their studies altogether.

http://tweetthief.tumblr.com/

But what happens in the professional world?

Well, you can flunk out there, too.

As you may remember, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper came under fire a couple of years ago for having delivered a speech that appeared to have been plagiarized from one given by former Australian Prime Minister John Howard two days earlier. His speechwriter quickly admitted to the plagiarism and resigned his position, having publicly embarrassed himself, the Conservative party, and the Prime Minister -- not to mention many Canadians.

While cases this high-profile are few and far between, plagiarism happens all the time. While some may get away with it for a while, many don't -- and when that happens, whether the plagiarists realize it or not, their reputations suffer.

Why am I writing about this now?

Here are two tweets that turned up in my Twitter timeline last week from two different users, in the order in which I received them.


Note the date/time stamps -- the second followed the first by more than a day.

Do you believe it's coincidence that these two Twitter users had the same witty thought and expressed it in exactly the same words? Or do you think maybe the writer of the second ripped off the first, adding the little winky face for originality?

My first instinct is the latter. I may be wrong -- maybe the writer of the second tweet just forgot to add the "RT" and had no intention of presenting someone else's thought as their own. Had that been the case, a quick follow-up tweet saying something like "oops! I forgot to add the RT!" and crediting the original author would've done the trick.

It so happens that the author of the second tweet is an established PR professional in a major American city. I'll admit to having been shocked to see this from him/her; I'll also admit I've stopped following him/her on Twitter as a result. This one little Twitter indiscretion has torpedoed this person's credibility, at least in my mind.

The social media community expects better.

In the communities that have grown in and around social media, like in most communities, there are wackos, there are silent watchers, and there are everyday people from all walks of life who share their thoughts, ideas and observations. While there are dishonest people who take advantage of the opportunity for anonymity to spread vitriol and take advantage of others, social media culture is overall open and honest, and relatively intolerant of bullsh*t.

Just have a look at the content on many blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, and you'll see posts calling out politicians, organizations, celebrities and companies on perceived unfairness, dishonesty, and disingenuousness. Numerous major companies know the misfortune of social media users having aired evidence of their poor customer service for the whole world to see. In many ways, social media participants take up the role traditionally played by mainstream media in challenging the powers that be -- in the words of CNN's Anderson Cooper, "keeping them honest."(Interested in the pursuit of social media plagiarists? There are Twitter accounts and blogs devoted solely to exposing them.)

Be honest.

While we read all the time about how basic English grammar is being destroyed by SMS texting, Facebook and Twitter, don't think the same laziness is accepted with respect to personal integrity. (I'll argue all night long about how grammatical laziness isn't acceptable either, but that's another post.)

Because so much of the exchange in social media takes place online, where people can hide behind false identities if they choose, honesty and integrity are just as important for legitimate members of the community here as in the "real world." Without those, the information and exchanges made available through social media are worthless, since no-one knows whom to trust.

So if you come across something on Twitter (or a blog, or Facebook, or MySpace, or anywhere else) you'd like to share, do so: but make sure you credit its author.

Otherwise, like Aesop's boy who cried wolf, you'll soon find no-one believes you about anything.

What not to tweet

I am a Twitter evangelist. I love the social networking site for many reasons: its forced message efficiency (140 characters and you’re done); the way it gives you the opportunity to connect with people from all over the globe, whether you’ve ever met them or not; the way it fosters the development of communities of interest; and, most importantly, the way it has widened my horizons on all things PR.

I’m not talking about just the impact of Twitter and all social media (a favourite topic on Twitter, at least among the people I follow) on PR; I’m also talking about the vast resources brought to my attention by the PR people I follow. I firmly believe that, through the connections I’ve made on the site, Twitter has made me a more effective PR counselor and teacher.

PR people should use Twitter – but use it wisely

While my use of Twitter has mostly been to share PR-related links and resources with colleagues, students and others interested in the field, Twitter also provides an outstanding platform for publicity and relationship-building between organizations and the people they serve. For a great (free) primer on Twitter, check out Mashable.com's The Twitter Guide Book.

Whether you think of it that way or not, Twitter also helps its users build a public online presence and “persona.”

One of the fundamental differences between Twitter and Facebook is that, unless you proactively "lock" or restrict access to your messages, everything you post on Twitter (i.e., everything you “tweet”) is public. And because your (unlocked) Twitter profile can be accessed publicly by anyone using the www.twitter.com/yourtwitterid pattern, your tweets are available for anyone (not just your friends, but also your boss, parents, prospective employers) to read – and are easy to find if you use your name as your user id (e.g. www.twitter.com/melanieleelockhart).

What you tweet doesn't only communicate what interests you – but also how you see the world, your work ethic, your discretion, and your professionalism. So before you tweet, think: “would this tweet reflect well on me if my boss, or a future employer, were to read it?”

I've read tweets from aspiring communicators that wouldn't. So I offer for your consideration:

Tweet no-nos

- anything offensive or discriminatory
- your drunken escapades/how late you stayed out last night (especially if you are working today)
- how you’d rather be partying than working
- how you’re less than committed to your work (either on the job or in school)
- your boss’ or colleagues' personal or professional deficiencies
- negative comments about your employer's product or service or operations
- how your employer’s customers are idiots
- inside jokes, more than occasionally – if you’re tweeting publicly, you’re saying “I’m sending this because I think you’d enjoy reading it.” If you widely distribute messages intended for narrow audiences on a regular basis, you’re saying “I'm happy to waste your time; look how witty I think I am; and by the way, you’re an outsider.”

You may have your friends in mind when you write your tweets – just remember that anyone can read them. What sounds hilarious to you in the bar on Friday night may not come off as brilliantly in the office on Monday morning.

If you wouldn't want to see it attributed to you on the front page of the local paper, don't tweet it.

Socrates! Blogs and tweets are public!

Steve Martin did a bit in 1980 in which Socrates complains that, despite all the time he and his students spent together, no-one ever mentioned that hemlock is poisonous [note: the part related to this topic is over by the 2 ½-minute mark].



Conservative Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is finding out this week that sometimes, what seems obvious (or at least, common knowledge) isn’t so obvious to everyone. He and his party are doing a little damage control after Edmonton-Calder MLA Doug Elniski posted some ill-considered “advice” to high-school girls on his blog [another note: this clip is preceded by a 30-second commercial, and followed immediately by other news stories].

Mr. Elniski reportedly has also had to apologize for comments he made on Twitter.

Everywhere we look these days, there’s discussion of how social media tools like blogs, Twitter, and Facebook are revolutionizing communications by allowing organizations and people in power to converse directly with their customers or constituents online. With that free access to “the people”, though, must come the recognition that what you say using these tools is “out there.” Sometimes, it can feel like a tweet is just a short-lived, offhand comment to your friends – but when you have a public reputation you care about, you need to make sure your tweets (or blog posts, or Facebook status updates) reflect who you are professionally.

We give this same advice to our CreComm students at Red River College. What you post online contributes to how the world – including future employers – sees you; so resist the temptation to post things that will reflect poorly on your “personal brand”. Once you post them, they're “out there”, for far more than your close friends to see. People who don’t know you will make judgments based on what you post – and that may not tell the whole (or even an accurate) story.

OK, gotcha. Watch what I say using social media, check. Case closed?

Not quite.

In an article in The Globe and Mail online, Elniski says he will continue to use online communications – “but he may have his comments vetted, possibly by government officials, before they appear;” for his part, Stelmach’s chief of staff says he’s going to “send a letter to Tory MLAs in the coming days about the dos and don'ts of using social networking websites.” Certainly, that might help reduce the number of similar embarrassments to the party in future – but it doesn’t address the fundamental issue of the MLA’s personal views and judgment. [For the record, Elniski has publicly regretted and apologized for the comments, and Premier Stelmach has clearly stated that the comments don't reflect "my values, they don't reflect the values of our government, they don't reflect the values of the caucus nor of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party."]

Historically, many Canadians have voted for candidates without ever having had direct contact with them; they voted for the ideas and ideals attributed to the candidates, but didn’t have much opportunity to get to know them personally. Now, social media tools like blogs and Twitter allow politicians more opportunities to speak directly to their constituencies without the filters of the mainstream media (or even, apparently, party brass); they allow people to get to know their representatives a little better on a personal level, for better or for worse. Today, if your candidate has a less-than-politics-friendly sense of humour, people are going to notice it.

Vetting politicians' blog posts and tweets may reduce the potential for online embarrassments, but if they really represent their views, they're just as likely to express them in other forums. New media and traditional PR tactics aside, the most important ingredient in any successful PR campaign is your product: if there are characteristics of your product your customers won’t like, the best PR strategy for the long term is to address them.