Let's call it the first 'Lesson of Luke'... colloquially known as 'Puke Watson' these days. The first Lesson of Luke is not to shoot your mouth off. Especially if you have a public persona and what you say could be news - particularly if you say something controversial. As our own expert marketing guru Chris Moerdyk said on these pages last week, the fact that the comments that have caused such a visceral reaction were made in private "is meaningless in this day and age of social journalism" where everybody and their dog has a webpage (check out 'Dogbook' and 'Catbook' on Facebook...). The second Lesson of Luke is that in the age of Google, if what you say or do makes it online, it is virtually impossible to expunge those comments as Google archives things into perpetuity. There are well-known cases of corporate brands and private individuals having their own websites come second in the rankings to rude comments made about them, parodies or rival websites that are not complimentary ('Helkom' being an example Telkom does not like to be reminded of). Google is an archive which will remind the public of everything anyone has ever said in public that was noteworthy - including petitions you've signed, comments you've made under Bizcommunity stories, blogs you've contributed to, etc. The conversation will be there for your grandchildren to see. The third Lesson of Luke is that you don't have a choice about what ends up on the Internet. You are not in control. You must keep an eye on your personal brand and the brand you work for/are custodian of, by Googling yourself regularly. You'd be surprised at what comes up. The scariest thing for me is the level of ignorance among many professionals in this industry about how social media works, let alone using user-generated content (UGC) to your and your brand's advantage, or to protect your reputation. If you are not interested in building your own brand or protecting the one you work for, then at least get up to speed so you can protect your kids in the future from cyber bullying and other online menace that unfortunately is part of being online on social media sites, be it via a PC or a mobile phone (there are as many kids using MXit in South Africa as the total population online via PC in SA). The reality is that how we communicate and interact will never be the same again and we all have to get up to speed with the new technologies in order to meet the challenges in our workplace, socially or in the home.
Have a good week! Louise Marsland, editor: editor@bizcommunity.com. All marketing news to: marketingnews@bizcommunity.com. Responses to this column welcomed in our new online editor's column archive or on our blog: http://blog.bizcommunity.com.