Czaro Strategic Communications

Workers utilize Twitter as a critical part of their daily communications with friends, co-workers, colleagues, clients, customers and others within their industry. It is a valuable tool to build your brand, engage customers and provide customer service – when done properly.

Here’s a quiz.

Q. True or False? Messages posted to Twitter reside on the Web in perpetuity (that means forever), where prospective employers and customers can find them.

A. You bet your career it’s true. And, yes, it is possible to appear unprofessional in only 140 characters.

The past few weeks I’ve been appalled at some of the Tweets people sent while they were at work. One person, in particular, forced me to change accountants because of the unprofessional messages she sent while representing her employer. I bet her employer doesn’t even know. Or worse, doesn’t care.

I could block her, but then I wouldn’t have fodder for future blog posts. If you like having a job, please avoid the following 10 topics while you’re on the clock representing your employer:

• Religion. Unless you work for a church, don’t force-feed your religious opinions. And try to avoid denigrating other religions at the expense of your own.
• Personal hygiene. I don’t need to know about the stomach flu or what the enchiladas have done to your digestive tract. Nor do I need to be kept aware of your medical procedures or see pictures of your insect bites.
• Job search. If you ask someone about a job opening, do it in a direct message (DM).
• Politics. You don’t know what candidate I voted for and you don’t know my position on every issue. So unless you represent a political party, elected official, or governmental organization don’t get on your 140-character soapbox.
• Alcohol. If you’re complaining about a headache at 9 a.m., I’ll assume you have a hangover. Especially if you Tweeted that you were craving a drink yesterday afternoon and sent a message at 4:45 p.m. that you were leaving early for a tequila-shot party. Talking about attending a networking mixer is fine. Talking about how many drinks you’re going to mix isn’t.
• Social life. Fights with the spouse. Opinions on your boyfriend. Complaints about your girlfriend. What does this have to do with my P&L projections?
• Language. Just because you can use profanity doesn’t mean you should.
• Shopping. I observed a 40 minute-Twitter conversation between two people – about houses. Photos and listings were shared back and forth. That’s a private conversation and since neither were realtors, it wasn’t work-related.
• Your job. Don’t complain about the job you have. Commute bothering you? Coffee maker broken? Boss annoying? Co-workers too loud? Today the squeaky wheel gets the Pink Slip – not the grease.
• Your job – Part II. If you complain about having to stay late ,when I’ve witnessed you waste several hours committing the aforementioned offenses, know that I’ll probably blog about it. Then I’ll get a new accountant. Probably an accountant on Twitter whose employees don’t offend me.

One person committed all these offenses in a five-day period. Because of the economic downturn, there are a lot of people out of work. I fear there will be one more very soon.

What topics did I leave off the list? Have a story you’d like to share?