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S Abrams
S Abrams
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I work for a large multinational company. Lately they've been encouraging (not requiring) us to "go social", to talk about their products, services, conference talks, etc on our personal social networks. (This would be in our words, not marketing's words, though they're "willing to help".) This is new to me; I thought most companies didn't want you to talk about them. (At worst you make them look bad; at best people assume you're shilling and the message isn't effective.)

Now I happen to like the stuff we do, so I'm not averse to mentioning that from time to time, but I've generally been careful to avoid mingling work and personal online. I almost never blog, tweet, or otherwise write about my employer. It seems easier to avoid pitfalls that way. But the worlds do mingle anyway; I have friends who are coworkers, people I follow socially mainly because of a work connection, etc. So this wall between worlds might not be very solid anyway.

I'm trying to decide whether to change my approach. What is likely to go wrong if I do? What is likely to go wrong if I don't, when my employer wants us to?

I work for a large multinational company. Lately they've been encouraging us to "go social", to talk about their products, services, conference talks, etc on our personal social networks. (This would be in our words, not marketing's words, though they're "willing to help".) This is new to me; I thought most companies didn't want you to talk about them. (At worst you make them look bad; at best people assume you're shilling and the message isn't effective.)

Now I happen to like the stuff we do, so I'm not averse to mentioning that from time to time, but I've generally been careful to avoid mingling work and personal online. I almost never blog, tweet, or otherwise write about my employer. It seems easier to avoid pitfalls that way. But the worlds do mingle anyway; I have friends who are coworkers, people I follow socially mainly because of a work connection, etc. So this wall between worlds might not be very solid anyway.

I'm trying to decide whether to change my approach. What is likely to go wrong if I do? What is likely to go wrong if I don't, when my employer wants us to?

I work for a large multinational company. Lately they've been encouraging (not requiring) us to "go social", to talk about their products, services, conference talks, etc on our personal social networks. (This would be in our words, not marketing's words, though they're "willing to help".) This is new to me; I thought most companies didn't want you to talk about them. (At worst you make them look bad; at best people assume you're shilling and the message isn't effective.)

Now I happen to like the stuff we do, so I'm not averse to mentioning that from time to time, but I've generally been careful to avoid mingling work and personal online. I almost never blog, tweet, or otherwise write about my employer. It seems easier to avoid pitfalls that way. But the worlds do mingle anyway; I have friends who are coworkers, people I follow socially mainly because of a work connection, etc. So this wall between worlds might not be very solid anyway.

I'm trying to decide whether to change my approach. What is likely to go wrong if I do? What is likely to go wrong if I don't, when my employer wants us to?

Tweeted twitter.com/#!/StackWorkplace/status/626583847946321920
Source Link
S Abrams
S Abrams
  • 583
  • 1
  • 4
  • 8

Employer wants us to tweet (etc) about them; what should I consider?

I work for a large multinational company. Lately they've been encouraging us to "go social", to talk about their products, services, conference talks, etc on our personal social networks. (This would be in our words, not marketing's words, though they're "willing to help".) This is new to me; I thought most companies didn't want you to talk about them. (At worst you make them look bad; at best people assume you're shilling and the message isn't effective.)

Now I happen to like the stuff we do, so I'm not averse to mentioning that from time to time, but I've generally been careful to avoid mingling work and personal online. I almost never blog, tweet, or otherwise write about my employer. It seems easier to avoid pitfalls that way. But the worlds do mingle anyway; I have friends who are coworkers, people I follow socially mainly because of a work connection, etc. So this wall between worlds might not be very solid anyway.

I'm trying to decide whether to change my approach. What is likely to go wrong if I do? What is likely to go wrong if I don't, when my employer wants us to?