Many do not realize that being active in social media across different platforms especially LinkedIn could result in getting you fired and destroy your career. Social media had been and always been a tool for networking, voicing your thoughts, and earning money. Social media in the end is a tool like many other tools nowadays, it has pluses and minuses, positives and negatives, upsides and downsides. That depends on the way your recruit these tools towards your benefits smartly.
Being active in social media is one of the great ways to share your best knowledge, experience, and practices with others. Also, your engagements with others and relates to their content could open positive opportunities for the brightening of your career. Getting engaged in content and users (share, likes, comments, follows, connects and etc..) will shape your personality, brand, and thoughts in front of many people. Human phycology is complicated and has a lot of unknown factors that drive their decisions regardless if there were right or wrong.
Here are some reasons why you should be careful using social media platforms while you are an employee?
- Employers and others might think you do not anything to do at the workplace especially during working hours.
- If you are an employee, then you are part of the organization. This means you are representing your organization’s thoughts, culture, and practices in the eyes of others. If you voiced your thoughts that could/might be against the organization, your co-workers and managers will think that publicly going against them even if it is your own personal opinions or within your personal capacity. No organization is willing to get associate with someone that represents them negatively and in public. Then, you and the organization are not on the same page.
- Posting negative comments, deceptive contents, inappropriate engagement, and sharing confidential details all are against the organization’s guidelines that will result in you getting fired or even going further to legal actions. This also continues to the previous point as your engagement in social media reflects the workplace culture and mindset that is surely not true. Again, no one wants to be associated with anyone that is negative, racial, and sexist with inappropriate behavior.
Recommendations:
- Use social media Smartly.
- Use it outside the working hours.
- Do not post inappropriate content (negative, racial, sexist, nudity, unethical, hateful, etc.).
- Understand your organization’s mindset, culture, and practices, and engage within their safe zone.
- Know your organization’s associates, competitors, and blacklist of organizations not to engage with.
- Do not post while you are in unstable emotions which will lead to posting content and regret late. Think before you post and engage.
This is not only applicable to employees, but also to business owners, entrepreneurs, freelancers, and self-employed. Sharing your thoughts, experience, and best practices might attract some segments of clients; but on the other hand, it will make other clients run away from you. There will be always sacrifices and the smart way to do is with minimal disturbance and negative impacts.
Let me know what you think and if you have any thoughts or comments, feel free to voice it over. Do not forget to share, like, follow and subscribe. Stay Safe, Healthy, and Positive.