Tag Archives: branding

August 8, 2013 · 9:36 am

Wising Up

Social media has been a fact of many people’s lives for at least 5 years now.  For many on the younger end of the age spectrum it’s been more like 10 years.  Social channels have gone from being something one did with a generally small circle of real life friends to being a central communications tool in many users’ lives.  We’ve morphed from “what ever happened to…” into way too much information about people who are only marginally important to us.

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One group of people who have learned to use social media exceptionally well in hiring are prospective employers and recruiters.  Unfortunately, what they often find does way more harm than good.  What’s funny and cute to your frat bothers can seem juvenile to anyone looking for a candidate they can groom for the next few years.

Maybe they’re wising up, however.  According to a new survey from FindLaw.com, the legal information website, more than a quarter of young social media users think that something they posted could come back to haunt them.

The survey found that 29 percent of users of Facebook and other social media between the ages of 18 and 34 have posted a photo, comment or other personal information that they fear could someday either cause a prospective employer to turn them down for a job, or a current employer to fire them if they were to see it. The survey covered Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr and other popular social media.

A form of “day-after remorse” seems to be evident. Close to the same percentage of young social media users – 21 percent – say that they have removed or taken down a photo or other social media posting because they feared it could lead to repercussions with an employer.

Users are taking other precautions as well. The same survey found that 82 percent of young social media users say that they pay at least some attention to their privacy settings. Only six percent said that they pay no attention and only use the default settings when using social media.

We all know what can happen when businesses and brands aren’t careful about what they post.  Your personal brand needs to be handled the same way.  Assume everything you post will be seen (in the worst possible light, by the way) by prospective employers as well as your current boss.  Learn about your privacy settings and change them.   If you’d be embarrassed for your mom to see something, it probably doesn’t belong in a place where she can find it.

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July 23, 2008 · 8:22 pm

The Town Crier

Way back when, I suspect that no one much cared what was going on in Washington (and I suppose there are a great number of folks who feel that way now, but this is NOT a political blog!).  The things they cared about were what was going on in their own backyard and maybe the backyards a town or two over.  Media – basically the newspaper – was inherently local since in general news didn’t travel fast enough to make it timely for the daily or even weekly paper.

Fast forward a couple of hundred years.  The Times printed a story today about how newspapers are cutting their national and world reportage to focus on local.

Half of all papers said they had increased the amount of state and local news they published, especially “hyper-local” community news…the shrunken newsrooms have taken on added duties in feeding their Web sites, like producing subsites covering specific towns or neighborhoods, or posting articles in the morning and updating them throughout the day.

Given that a story in Moscow is on the web and known in NY within minutes (maybe sooner if Twitter was ever up and working), I’m not sure why this is a bad thing.  World and national news has sort of become a commodity.  Good local reporting is rare and there aren’t enough people in any town doing it.   Any brand needs to distinguish itself in some manner and regurgitating the same AP story as every other news outlet isn’t doing that.  Frankly, besides the Times, Journal, and a few other major papers, there isn’t a whole lot of original content happening outside of the metro desk.

So why do the news guys seem upset about this?  If I’m them, I get to the head of the line in my town before the radio, TV, and local web guys get there first.

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June 12, 2008 · 5:44 pm

Why it’s different this time

This is not a political post. That said, this piece on the Obama campaign’s use of digital media channels to disintermediate demonstrates how things have changed, even in the four years since our last exercise in freedom:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has launched a Web site to dispel rumors about his faith and patriotism and his wife’s views on race that have dogged his candidacy for more than a year.

This is what any good business should be doing now, along with, of course, using some of the more traditional channels to dispel untruths. The classic example is the rumors surrounding a series of poisonings and how it affected the product. While the response to the Tylenol problem of the early 80’s required J&J to work through print and television, both paid and unpaid, to get their message out, they also took tangible action beyond PR as they recalled $100m worth of product. Today, while tangible action is always key, when there is nothing to be done except present facts, that action must be done through every means available.

Regardless of your political affiliation, the use in this campaign of everything from Twitter to SEO and how it has made a difference is great to watch. I’m excited to see which side does a better job. Our election cycle is a very public example of short-term brand-building and it is a zero-sum game, unlike non-political branding. It has a protracted window – sort of the ultimate brand-building reality show. I, for one, am paying attention to the lessons we can take away.

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