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Think Before You Tweet: The Do Not Tweet List

By Tac Anderson ⋅ March 2, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment
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loose tweets sink fleets

The Do Not Tweet List

  1. Don’t complain about your customers on Twitter. They are listening.
  2. DM is not IM. It’s not a secure communication channel.
  3. Disclose conflicts of interest: Clients, Competitors, Partners.
  4. Don’t get defensive about negative criticism of your company or products.
  5. Don’t publicize private issues or jeopardize the company’s working relationships.
  6. Unless soliciting community feedback is part of your product development, don’t  tweet about products under development.
  7. Don’t post about company financials before an earnings call. This can get you and your company in trouble with the SEC.
  8. If you have a gripe about a coworker or your boss talk to them about it. Tweeting about it is passive aggressive and makes you and the company look bad.
  9. Don’t spam your personal account with irrelevant work promotions. Promoting work is fine if it’s relevant to your followers.
  10. Don’t think having an anonymous account makes any of the above okay.

Alternately named “Loose Tweets Sink Fleets.”

To quote my good friend and colleague Jeremy Meyers:

“Twitter is very conducive to posting without thinking.”

There are many instances of company and employee tweets gone wrong. A tweet can be a 140 character time bomb. Time and time again people have said things on Twitter that have blown up in their face.

Most recently Twitter developer Alex Payne posted “If you had some of the nifty site features that we Twitter employees have, you might not want to use a desktop client. (You will soon.)”

While on one level this may seem benign enough. Alex is excited about the product that his company is making. The problem is  that Twitter has grown to the size that it is because of third party developers. Twitter has obviously made a decision to compete more and more with the very developers that helped make them popular. That single tweet tipped their hand and surely caused Twitter a flurry of phone calls, emails and headaches right before their first developer conference.

This is a huge challenge for companies. You want to be open and social but you don’t want to leak information or send mixed messages in the market. What fascinated me the most was the way Twitter responded. They responded like a large company not the social media darling that they are.

MG Siegler has a great post on a reporter/blogger perspective of the leaked Twitter tweet.

So why do Twitter employees (and others) get mad? Because we’re amplifying the statement Payne made which they think he shouldn’t have. This is nothing new, it happens all the time in all forms of media. And companies hate it because they want to be in control of the message. But the fact of the matter is that he made an interesting statement, and people are clearly interested in reading about it, reading thoughts about it, and leaving their own comments about it.

Employees Don’t Be Stupid

This problem isn’t going away. Just like sending an email to the wrong person or replying in the wrong IM window hasn’t gone away, Twitter is just one more channel for miscommunications. The problem is that, unlike IM or email, it’s a very public forum.

Think before you tweet. Anytime you’re going to say something publicly, take just a split second to think about what you’re posting. The below list is meant for your personal account when posting about work related items. This is my first stab at the list so I’d love some feedback.

The Do Not Tweet List

  1. Don’t complain about your customers on Twitter. They are listening.
  2. DM is not IM. It’s not a secure communication channel.
  3. Disclose conflicts of interest: Clients, Competitors, Partners.
  4. Don’t get defensive about negative criticism of your company or products.
  5. Don’t publicize private issues or jeopardize the company’s working relationships.
  6. Unless soliciting community feedback is part of your product development, don’t  tweet about products under development.
  7. Don’t post about company financials before an earnings call. This can get you and your company in trouble with the SEC.
  8. If you have a gripe about a coworker or your boss talk to them about it. Tweeting about it is passive aggressive and makes you and the company look bad.
  9. Don’t spam your personal account with irrelevant work promotions. Promoting work is fine if it’s relevant to your followers.
  10. Don’t think having an anonymous account makes any of the above okay.

Companies Focus on Education not Control

Your employees are smart but not perfect. Instead of trying to control employees we need to educate them. Remind them regularly that there are just some things they shouldn’t talk about in any public communications. You can just throw open the doors and expect there to not be any mistakes. Learning has to happen and it happens through training or trial and error.

We have media training for executives before they make public statements why not employees?

What kind of training do you have for your employees around social media?

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Photo Credit by Brian Lane Winfield Moore

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About Tac

Social media anthropologist. Communications strategist. Business model junkie. Chief blogger here at New Comm Biz.

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  • http://www.viewsflow.com/w/1VzI Think Before You Tweet: The Do Not Tweet List - Viewsflow

    [...] There are many instances of company and employee tweets gone wrong. A tweet can be a 140 character time bomb. Time and time again people have said things on Twitter that have blown up in their face.Close [...]

  • http://twitter.com/AAA_Stripe_Pro AAA_Stripe_Pro

    Thanks for the tips ,very informative.

  • http://www.foundationmedicalstaffing.com/ Hemodialysis Jobs

    The question is how often have you tweeted and wished you could have taken it back?

  • http://www.wirefresh.com/the-do-not-tweet-list-and-how-to-avoid-twitter-disasters/ wirefresh » The Do Not Tweet List and how to avoid Twitter disasters

    [...] [NewCommBiz] [...]

  • ArtemisP

    I strongly agree with trying to educate your employees instead of trying to control them. Your company doesn't *really* have control over what people say about it anyway. So educating your representatives on the correct Twitter behavior is key.

    I would also like to add that creating a corporate social media policy and social media guidelines should be the first step, even if the brand is not officially participating in social media. Also, a second educational session should be done after a couple of months from the original to refresh and reincorporate the information from the first one.

  • Charlie Hope

    Great article , thanks for sharing.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com tacanderson

    I think we've all done that more than we'd like to admit.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com tacanderson

    Absolutely, policies and guidelines have to be the first step in the education process. and they do need to be readdressed on a regular basis, this space is moving to fast to just set it and forget it.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com/dont-overreact-to-your-social-media-mistakes/ Don’t Overreact to Your Social Media Mistakes

    [...] I recently wrote about Alex Payne, a developer for Twitter, who posted a tweet that caused a lot of contention among the Twitter developer community. Think Before You Tweet: The Do Not Tweet List. [...]

  • http://www.technologyevaluation.com/ Gabriel Gheorghiu

    i would add to the list that we need to be careful when we re-tweet. Just because someone else said it, it doesn't mean we're not responsible for forwarding it to other people.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com tacanderson

    Great point. All of the above apply equally to RT's as they do original tweets.

  • http://otherlibrarian.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/how-to-talk-about-your-blog-in-public/ How to Talk About Your Blog in Public « The Other Librarian

    [...] Comment! A basic Google search for all kinds of blogging and podcasting advice.   How to get bonus Google Traffic using SEO tips.    How to write great content.   How to monetize.   How not to become a viral ad for social media marketing douchebags.   What to Tweet and What Not to Tweet. [...]

  • @jyi

    Great perspective and advice. I like the graphic “Loose Tweets Sink Fleets”… do you know the illustrator attribution? — I'd like to share it.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com tacanderson

    yes, I always leave a link at the bottom of each post for photo attribution whenever relevant. In this case it's Brian Lane Winfield Moore http://www.flickr.com/photos/doctabu/

  • Evelyn

    I guess many people forget tweeting is like making a short speech to the public. Yet Twitter doesn't allow us to delete others' tweets even they mention (@) something embarassing related to us. Food for thought, future PR for Tweeting is coming! (Welcome to connect @evyfindstheway)

  • http://emilyseong.com/2010/03/21/how-to-send-your-reputation-up-in-flames/ How to Send Your Reputation Up in Flames « EmilySeong's Blog

    [...] How to Send Your Reputation Up in Flames This is going to be short. Its just a few words I wanted to add to @tacanderson’s blog post Think Before You Tweet: The Do Not Tweet List. [...]

  • http://twitter.com/StevieGodson Stevie Godson

    Perhaps this isn’t so important but if your followers know who you work for, it’s probably best not to use foul language (like some of the awful “grammar nasties”), or to disclose intimate stuff, either. And never forget - even if none of that’s relevant right now, it can still come back to haunt you (like when you DO land that amazing job).

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com tacanderson

    I think that is important Stevie. If you’re trying to make your living as a professional, be professional. If you’re 50cent, not so much.

  • http://blog.webcopyplus.com/2010/11/22/5-headlines-youre-tired-of-seeing-in-your-feed/ 5 Headlines You’re Tired of Seeing in Your Feed | Webcopyplus Web Copywriter Blog

    [...] from wise tips like this — go ahead, be yourself online! After all, that’s how people connect through social media, [...]

  • Anonymous

    It seems that every generation needs to be educated on appropriate social and professional conduct. This article is a good reminder of the power of the written word. What is also important is to make sure one’s spelling is accurate. Otherwise, reading a mangled, misspelled post/tweet is just plain torture.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com/search-as-content-what-does-it-mean-to-publishers-in-the-age-of-social-media/ Search As Content: What Does It Mean To Publishers In The Age of Social Media? | New Comm Biz

    [...] year I wrote: Think Before You Tweet: The Do Not Tweet List. I looked at some recent examples of employees getting in trouble for tweeting things they [...]

  • http://twitter.com/jdhwi Dave

    “The problem is  that Twitter has grown to the size that it is because of third party developers.”

    Explain.

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