Despite the hundreds of millions of people on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and elsewhere, there are still many people who are understandably sensitive about the whole social media thing.
There are rightful concerns around privacy, and about mixing friends with professional life. Do I really want my clients to see my weekend family picnic photos that I shared with my relatives? Do I really want my family to see my attempts at promoting my business?
As human beings we act differently in different environments. This is not being a chameleon or disingenuous, it’s just human. We adapt our levels of vulnerability and self-disclosure according to what’s appropriate for the situation.
Social media has done something very funny with that, which is to combine our worlds into one place: family, friends, and work. Plus we interact with all of that from physical locations, like our home, that would normally give our body cues that we’re in private.
There are good things about this. I think the trend toward being more vulnerable, real and human within the world of business is healing overall.
There are bad things about this, too. It’s brought the realm of business and marketing into our social and family circles. Of course, business was always part of my family circle. My parents owned a retail store and talked about it at home all the time.
But my parents didn’t bring the advertising home and put it on the dining room table. Well, okay, my dad did that, but only when he was working on the ad, before sending it to The Washington Post.
The attempt to monetize our friendships is not new, but it has reached an unprecedented degree.
All of this is to say that I empathize tremendously with the integrity and privacy issues that so many are struggling with.
I have to admit that I do go into a bit of denial with Facebook in particular. It’s a privately-owned platform, the enormous amount of personal data collected is being put to both commercial and political use. Yet it’s also where a tremendous number of people are, and I want to connect with those people.
Social media has brought a great deal of good into my life, reconnecting me with childhood friends, increasing the depth of connection I have with family, and yes, allowing my business message to reach many people in a very human way.
Unfortunately the mixing of these spheres has also led to regrettable integrity lapses. A client told us that he had taken a course with someone else, and that other person had used our client’s profile photo without permission to promote that same course. The trouble was that our client hadn’t liked the course and didn’t want to support or promote it. Despite being asked, the other business owner didn’t stop using his profile photo.
When you are in public anyone can take your picture and use it. What this business owner did was legal, but it lacked integrity.
That’s perhaps a bigger lapse of integrity, but the normal, expected differences in how we act with different groups of people, such as when we post to family members in one moment, and then the next minute make a posting for our business, can *feel* uncomfortable, even like an integrity lapse.
Because there’s no transition, no physical or social cues that we’ve changed contexts, it’s hard to accept in ourselves the change in self-expression. It’s also makes the question obvious: should we change our self-expression? Shouldn’t we be the same no matter whom we are with?
No, we shouldn’t. And yet, we need to navigate this one with a lot of heart, because with social media it’s harder to segment our lives in what can be healthy ways.
I’m really curious how you navigate social media, or if you have chosen not to. Do you struggle with issues of integrity in social media, or are you at peace with how things are? How do you navigate it?
With love and appreciation,
Mark
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45 Responses
Great article, Mark.
I love facebook for promoting my business. I have a personal account and a fan page. I do promote my website on my personal page as well, if there are sensitive issues where I talk about my family in my article I just select my family who are all on facebook to not be able to see that post. Chances are they dont read my blog anyway.
I just think its the way of the future.
So I may rant about how cold the weather is and post cute doggy photos, and share my newest blog post. I dont however post cute doggy photos on my fan page. Thats strictly business.
That’s great, Kate. I love you unabashed enthusiasm for it!
One guideline for ethics is: Would you want what you are about to do on the front page of a newspaper.
A guideline for social media is: This will be out there and could be on the front page of a newspaper at any time in the future.
So I do chat about causes that I care about – my values are pretty public. But personal friendships and the details of my relationships I rarely talk about via social media.
Exactly, Evan.
Dear Mark: I have been reflecting on your post. I recently had to do a bunch of tweets for a client. I did them — and some blog posts. And I know which I preferred. I do feel that our language is a tool for reform and a huge vehicle for creativity. And what I read in other people’s tweets — people who work in community engagement like I do — was really, REALLY boring. Really boring. I was educated pretty deeply in English literature. I love poetry — as Yollana does. I love her poems. And I love language and I honour my semi-colons. I do quite a bit of editing. One of my clients writes in sentence fragments. Perhaps he tweets too much? Maybe it’s my age, but truly I have little to say in 140 characters that can communicate the depths of my feelings about professional matters. So I will stay with blogging for now. Blessings, Wendy
Maybe you could think of writing for Twitter as crafting Haiku?
Wendy- I hear you. I think that every day comments can be boring, unless we know the person. I actually *do* care what a friend had for breakfast, but in general, not so much. I’ve also found that a tremendous amount can be shared via 140 characters- more than I imagined- especially once I have a relationship established with someone. And I very much honor what you’re saying- the truth is that some things can’t be communicated in 140 characters, no matter how hard we try.
I appreciate the fact you mentioned the body cue mismatch when we’re at home and safe, yet we’re on social media at the same time.
The business vs. friends-family split isn’t fine enough for me. My Aunt Matilda doesn’t want to hear about the challenges I face being in an interracial relationship. But friends who are in a similar situation can talk about it with me for hours. Checking individuals to exclude on a per post basis is cumbersome.
One solution I use is G+. I know there aren’t so many folks there, but at least on that platform I can form as many distinct/overlapping people groupings as I like
Janina- You’re right, of course. And then there are friends and there are friends, and there’s family and then there’s family. There are so many different circles. I know G+ has that capability, but personally I just can’t take on one more platform… 🙂
Similar to Kate and Evan and I’m just going to talk about Facebook which I think is the most confusing boundary-wise.
I have a personal and a business profile.
I keep my business profile strictly business.
On my personal profile I share quite a lot of my business posts plus cute cats, political posts and shares and everything else. All bearing in mind that anyone at any time can see them, so I am very careful and share little that is actually very personal.
However, I got in late the other night and received a message that an old friend had died mysteriously. It wasn’t possible for me to find out more and in a stunned state I wrote that a friend had died on Facebook on my personal status. I received loads of really kind responses.
I consider this a lapse, however, my tribe responded very appropriately to this I think and were really supportive. I cannot imagine it making a difference in the bigger picture although for a moment my truly personal world and my Facebook personal world collided.
I run a national company of women plumbers and recommend to all our plumbers to have a separate business identity which they can keep professional
Mica- Facebook has been really important for me to keep up with friends and family- there have been some very profound connections that have been deepened and kept alive through that platform, and I’m grateful.
This is the question I am currently dealing with in my life. I love social media–I keep my incoming streams positive, so the information uplifts and inspires and I intend to keep my outgoing streams the same. I feel segmented, though–photos on Instagram and Flickr and a business and personal page on Facebook and all of it in one on Instagram. That doesn’t include Google+ and Linked in. I “know” so many people, but I don’t know them at all. Yet, I understand I am planting seeds that often blossom beyond my sight.
Nice, Joy. Very clear.
Here is my guideline for posting on my personal Facebook page (which I regard as a public page) as well as my Community Page: what is my intention for making this post? What does my post say about the topic – and about me? I am very careful and always write from my Higher Self. I feel good about what I put out and my intention is to help others raise their vibration as well. So therefore, posting on Facebook aligns me with my Highest Self and hopefully inspires others. A win-win.
Hi Lisa- do you think folks would benefit from seeing the human side, too, and not just the Higher self? Curious where your line is, exactly.
Thank you for raising these thorny issues. I appreciate hearing how others navigate them.
In my case, my business page is separate from my profile, yet my profile is viewable by a good many people in my profession. I use my profile to post business-related topics as well as some on family and social matters, and double-post business news on the business page.
A friend who works in national security advised strongly against sharing photos of children except in a closed, secret FB group, so even though I share stories about my family, I don’t post my child’s face anywhere.
Recently, some painful Facebook humor came my way through colleagues in my profession, and it upset me enough to drop my usual diplomacy and labor over an uncharacteristically righteous blog post about it. http://www.tracywalton.com/blog/facebook-humor-and-the-massage-therapy-profession/.
I loved what you said about switching contexts, and I’m still learning as I go.
Tracy, this is a beautiful blog post. I loved it when I first read it, and loved reading it again. It’s easy to be flip or thoughtless on facebook, as the trivia and jokes are flying around — and so important to remember, this is our public face, and the public face of our profession.
I try, really hard, to post only things I’m willing to stand behind, that I’m prepared to explain to anyone who eventually reads it — clients, my friends who share my beliefs, my family members who don’t, my professional colleagues. It means I post a lot about baseball, and not much about my personal life.
Thanks Mark for this topic!
I’ve thought about that, Tracy, with the kids photos- and yet we also want our family to see our kids… hmmm… I like the way you dealt with the “humor,” though.
Tracy Walton, I err on the side of caution with other people’s faces, especially kids. I can choose to let go of my privacy, but I have no right to blow other people’s, especially the privacy of kids. That’s a decision the kids made for themselves, when they got a older, and had already heard me go on about privacy rights and how other people and organizations, governments, etc. respect or don’t respect them.
Ambivalent.
I enjoy the connective power of social media, yet I do agree that boundaries are important. Although I have over 500 “friends” I almost never post to all of them with blanket posts. I use lists, a very underused tool of Facebook, to sort my posts. I have one list which I call my Innercircle whenever I post more vulnerability about where I’m struggling in order to get support. I also often post to the many groups I belong to and always make it so that only friends can see my posts. Just about the only posts that go to everyone are ones that are more promotional in nature, which I always try to write from my heart.
thank you todd. most helpful for my own sorting out process~
Todd- Yes, lists. I have more to learn here. Thanks for bringing that up.
Thanks for a timely and thought provoking article, Mark. I’m new to the world of Social Media and have been engaging in a larger way to promote an online retreat. As I’ve been doing this, the questions you raise have been surfacing.
It’s a good arena to practice staying alert, conscious and grounded, that’s for sure!
Thanks for all the great comments, they’re really helpful.
Fiona- that’s the name of the game, isn’t it? Alert, conscious and grounded…
Yes, having a background as an artist with a concentration in photo and video, I struggle a lot with integrity of social media. But one thing I really respond strongly too is the seemingly misinformation about what has integrity and what doesn’t. And then how those pieces of misinformation get utilized as a truth.
For example in the case you make about a client’s photo being used from Facebook to promote another teacher’s class. While what the other teacher did is clearly within the rights of Facebooks TOU’s. The reality is there’s a real possibility (since I don’t know all the details) what the teacher did was against federal copyright laws and can easily (and cheaply) be removed by filing a DCMA. For me I find it frustrating that companies like Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram imply rights to users that they don’t in fact have–they are the reasons that laws like SOPA, PIPA, and DOMA are even considered. If you don’t hold a copyright, even if it’s in a public space, you don’t have the right to use it unless given permission.
For me social media is a strange and difficult line to walk. A few years ago I pulled my art and social media presence from online sources (clearly as best I could) for personal reasons of regrouping and wanting to define a different direction for myself. However when I did engage, and while I know I’ll go back to it in the future, I tend to take the stance that infringement will happen. And I need to do things to offset the blow by lowering the effectiveness of infringement. But I also don’t want to live, work, and put that energy out there like that. I can see, like you said mark, how vulnerability and being real and open with clients is having a profound affect out there in the world……so it’s tricky, I haven’t found the balance within yet.
Kira- thank you- that’s a great perspective and knowledge to bring in. I so appreciate you bringing it in. Infringement will happen, and yet that doesn’t mean we have to roll over completely.
Ooops! Not DOMA…. I’m getting confused with all the government acts now! But there is another act that got shot down after SOPA and PIPA.
Kira- I was wondering how DOMA fit in there… 🙂
Ultimately I find that these platforms are short-lived because we are organic beings and I don’t believe that it suits us to be so dependent on our manufactured technology. I feel that they connect as much as they disconnect and what is gained is lost. I see social media and youtube and internet etc. are like symbolic reflections of our natural constant communication with one another as a whole living entity. I do believe that social media and the internet is playing a part in our evolution, and still I feel it is flash in the pan and that we’ll remember another way of expressing our interconnectedness, instantaneous connection, and direct access to knowledge.
While we have the chance to be exposed through social media, almost like everyone lives a public life, simultaneously I find that there are more dimensions of ourselves available for exposure.
At this moment I’m still finding my way with social media, email etc. cellphones. I’ve been reluctant about them, and wondering how to make wise use of these tools while things change. Mostly I find things distressing, to even know what makes sense, what is integrity or good boundaries. It is a really amazing social/relational challenge!!
thank you Sandra, you’ve expressed some of my own ambivalence.
and the elephant in the room here is the data mining that we all assent to when signing up with any social media. google, yahoo, facebook, and so forth have been most cooperative w. the NSA as we’ve learned from the help of the newest government “bad boy” Edward Snowden.
so while we can ring our hands over “social/relational” challenges, there’s boundaries we have no control over whatsoever. it may be indeed what we sacrifice to have such tools as social media., but I find it to be a conundrum.
I find this really timely. I am having a lot of fun right now creating a page for my business its in the infant stages still with only 37 likes but I am making progress and there are some complete strangers up there now. I think I tend to be overly conservative at times with my “professionalism” so Facebook does help with that for me. I still remember that I am talking on a street corner in public even when I am sharing my latest juicing experiment or vacation photos or offering counseling services. Its a very odd ethics conundrum really but so far its working.
One trick I use is to do a lot of my posting while I am physically in public. It helps me to remember.
Karen- very cool to see you here, and I’m so glad you’re dipping in. Good trick to post in public, although it won’t work for everyone.
I have a page for my business and personal profile on Facebook as well. It’s there I will communicate most with friends and family. I have degrees of friendship – with friends as well as business relations – and often utilize the lists capability on my personal profile for a separation I feel comfortable with.
Definitely a great topic and one to ponder on further. Thank you!
There’s that list thing again, Dawna. I definitely need to dip into that.
Thank you for this very sensitive and to-the-point article, Mark.
I made a clear decision to use my Facebook page for business communication only, yet include on the timeline the date of my marriage – with a photo of my husband – and the date of my daughter’s birth – with photo excluded for her safety. When people post things from change.org,etc, I delete them, to keep the page useful for people interested in what I offer.
It’s interesting that I recently went to Jason’s Facebook page (he’s my coach at Heart of Business) because I was getting pretty curious about him after coaching with him for two and a half years, and because he friended me on Facebook a few months ago. Since I’ve never met this very important person in my life, I was happy to learn more about him – like how cute his kids are, what his house looks like, and what kinds of things he does in the outdoors. Though I still can’t quite put together the Jason I talk to on the phone and the Jason who talks in these videos.
I think your points are very important about integrity and about choices. My recent article went viral on Facebook, and even though I’m aware there are privacy issues, I think Facebook is a great way to help a lot of people help themselves and learn about your business.
Madeline- awesome about your article! Congratulations- it is an fantastic way to connect with people, despite some of the downsides. I’m curious to hear what you mean “I can’t quite put together the Jason I talk to on the phone and the Jason who talks in these videos.”
I think that how people use social media is very personal and there is not one answer. It may change for each of us.
I started out friending everyone who requested, including other acupuncturists that I had never met. As the years have gone by, I’ve found that I really prefer being personal on Facebook and not professional. As I am no longer actively practicing acupuncture but have moved into writing, I am okay with having a couple of long time patients as friends.
I have a business page that I am working on utilizing for things other readers may be interested in. I keep business there as well as on the website. I post new books on my personal profile because most of my friends know I write and I know that is interesting to them. As an acupuncturist, I didn’t post as much about my services because so many of my Facebook friends are not local.
Additionally, because I’m a writer and that’s a rather isolating job, I use Facebook to remind me that there are people out there. I love reading about politics and yes I share those annoying political memes that go around Facebook. I also play Facebook games. I do try to limit the latter as they are annoying to friends as well as business friends. Because I know that’s what I enjoy on Facebook, I’ve opted to listen to the side of me that enjoys and needs that mid day social break and trying to honor that by ignoring friend requests from people I don’t know and un-friending people that I feel don’t want to hear about my political issues, or my cats.
I am friends with many people I went through the Moneyflow 2012 program with.I love seeing what everyone posts. I love hearing Mark and Jason talk abut their kids. It’s sort of like hanging out at the water cooler even if we don’t get to do that face to face. I don’t have kids, but I’m sure you’ve all heard more than enough about my cats…;).
Bonnie- I agree, there are a few facebook groups I’m on that feel really connecting- and I love seeing you all connect through the Moneyflow 2012 group!
You are welcome Meg!
I wonder if anyone else feels emotionally tired from the abundance?
Thank you Bonnie, I appreciate your post. I have already encountered some of the challenges with Facebook. For instance my mom is on Facebook, but I haven’t added her as a friend.
I find that like anything, the love can be found everywhere, including on facebook. And also there’s stuff where I just don’t want someone to post things on my wall etc. and can feel afraid I suppose of offending people to delete their stuff.
Also there’s lots of opportunity for conflict and a certain dis-embodied way to the format–I’m often at home when I’m on the computer, so perhaps the reminders about posting when in public would be interesting for me to explore.
Can the sacredness of privacy be maintained within the expression of exposing oneself in the facebook social format?
I will say that there’s a certain kind of joy to witness what other’s are thinking about and doing, and it is amazing to stay in touch with far-away folks. While, at the same time, for me, the face-to-face in the body for real meeting is where it is at.
Sandra- I agree that nothing replaces face-to-face. And, with awareness, I have experienced sacredness on social media for sure. 🙂
Here’s an upside, and I’m really loving it!
In the past month or two, I’ve celebrated big social media wins.
1. After trying through the normal channels to get a local hospital to cut me a break on a $4,128 bill for an ER visit, and getting nowhere because they don’t discount balances for people who have insurance no matter how high the deductible is, I posted on Twitter and FB, addressed to the hospital’s account. Got into a conversation with an entirely different person. The upshot: a 20% discount.
2. Got an unfair parking ticket at a broken meter. I had protested a ticket before through the normal channels. It was a joke. This time, I posted on Twitter and FB, addressed to the city, the mayor, and the local alternative newspaper. I got a response in an hour, and the ticket was dismissed within a week.
I love love love social media, yo! And not just for my business.
Love and light,
Sue
Hi Mark,
Great post!
I maintain a personal and fan page account for my company separately in fb. We also make sure not to mix the updates of the personal profile and fan page.
Google+ is another platform we make use to promote business. Here I am given the choice to choose the circles depending on the nature of the update.
Hey Mark, thanks a lot for this great article on Social media. I cleared a lot of my doubts about social media today. Thanks a lot.
One guideline for ethics is: Would you like what you’re close to doing on the front page of a newspaper.
A guideline for social media is: this may be out there and will get on the front page of a newspaper at any time within the future.
So I do chat about causes that I care about – my values are pretty public. But personal friendships and therefore the details of my relationships I rarely mention via social media.