Picture This: You Have No Control of Your Online Social Profiles – Marketing WTF?
Check out this photo – It’s our VP of Products, Jason Morio, at his sophomore prom in 1991. Someone posted this picture on their Facebook page, tagged Jason and an update was sent to his (Jason’s) friends. Before Jason got back to Facebook the photo had spread like wildfire here at work. So while this provided us with a lot of good laughs, it made me think…
What about those Spring Break 1988 pictures? How about the ones of you when you weighed 300 lbs.? Or even better, the pictures from your friend’s bachelor party? You know the ones. You thought these old pictures were buried in a box somewhere for no one to ever see again.
With social technologies taking off they way they are, how are you to prevent your old, maybe not to proud of, photos from getting out there?
Looks like you can’t anymore.
You can clearly see why this one falls in the WTF category – what do you think? And how do we as professionals ensure we aren’t mixing up our personal and professional lives? And not just today’s personal life but our lives back when we were younger and carefree? Is it even possible anymore?
3 Responses to “Picture This: You Have No Control of Your Online Social Profiles – Marketing WTF?”
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January 15th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Oh that is too good!
I don’t know if it is possible anymore, but most people today say you shouldn’t have separate lives in the social media realm. Well, I have a few college pictures that might not show me in the best light…if you get my drift…on Facebook. One, they were a great memory and when I first started Facebook it was only for college students. On the other hand, I do not want any of my superiors seeing them.
Right now I have it where no one can see my pictures on my profile. I am still there in the album that someone posted, but it doesn’t notify my friends.
I am sure you could get around this, but it’s a start…
January 21st, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Who’s his date? The perm is rad.
I think that people are becoming more aware of how pictures and videos can be used later.
But I also think that society is becoming more tolerant of things like this. Everyone has some embarrasing moments that could re-surface later. I think that as more things like this happen, people are becoming more tolerant, which is probably a good thing.
BTW, you missed out on the Kevin Colvin “Cool Wand” incident that far far more embarrasing than this… http://www.mikevolpe.com/bid/2899/Facebook-Kills-a-Career-Cool-Wand
February 25th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
For this exact reason, I don’t accept any friend invitations from business contacts on my Facebook account; that’s what LinkedIn is for. Perhaps I might miss a few opportunities by doing this, but it helps prevent embarrassments like the one in your post. I also take great care to employ Facebook’s security measures. It’s not fail proof, but it’s one of the ways I try to draw the line of distinction between business and pleasure.