CAUTION: What Facebook and Twitter have in common with Peanut the bird

I have the honor and privilege of being graced by the presence of a two-year-old conure (a species of

parrot) named Peanut.  For bird owners out there, you know what I mean. Conures have a naturally inquisitive look about them and they can certainly draw you in with their seemingly hospitable character and small size. However, catch Peanut on a bad day and that cute and fun little bird has just drawn blood on your finger, nose, etc. So, if you're approaching a bird like Peanut, you should know what you're dealing with and understand the boundaries you're operating within.

Much like Peanut, Facebook and Twitter are extremely tempting, especially for communicators. Both outlets provide a fantastic opportunity to have a more fun and informal dialogue with our customers, constituents, friends, reporters, etc.  Many of us engage in these channels in both our personal and professional lives. We invite people from both walks to be our “friends” or followers, many of whom are also community leaders and fellow communicators.

Generally, communications professionals should be afforded the same rights to privacy that anyone else is. However, when we choose to enter a government-related communications and spokesperson position, the line between what’s private and what’s public becomes increasingly blurred. Like it or not, if our salaries are funded through tax dollars, or like me, through rate paying customer-owners of a municipal utility, that line just became nearly invisible. Crossing that line is suddenly easier than catching Peanut on a bad day.

Hypothetically, say those Facebook “friends” just read your post on how a local leader likely had an affair with his secretary or should be fired because he’s an idiot. Well, the people you thought were your friends decided to share a screen capture of your comments with their friends, who then sent it to their friends, and so on and so on. Sooner or later, one of those people might not like what you had to say because they pay your salary. And worst yet, they might be a reporter. Even if you get off without any sort of formal punishment, you've just damaged your credibility as a spokesperson and indirectly harmed the image and reputation of your employer.

Using the excuse of, “it’s my personal Facebook page” just doesn't wash. As we all know, what’s posted on Facebook, stays on Facebook, and is anything but private. When we open ourselves up on social media with foolish behavior, we might as well take out a personal advertisement for someone else to take our job.

Social media has changed the landscape we work in. The positives greatly outweigh the negatives. However, as government communicators, our right to 100% privacy – while perhaps protected legally – becomes increasingly difficult to define in the court of public opinion, especially when our language crosses the line of society’s definition of acceptable behavior, e.g., calling for a local leader to be harmed physically or fired without proof of wrongdoing.

To do our jobs effectively, especially as a spokesperson, our credibility is our greatest ally. Damaging it because we didn’t look before leaping is inexcusable for people in our position.

Industry experience preferred

Reading some job postings would lead you to believe today’s public relations practitioner actually designs and builds rocket ships instead of explaining the quality, relevance and value of the rocket ships to a non-technical audience. Otherwise, why include, “industry experience preferred” in a posting whereby you hope to hire the very best strategic communicator possible and not the coolest industry techie?

I believe that industry experience – while nice to have in a candidate – is not the barometer for what separates a great public relations hire from just a good one.

Communications strategists can be an organization’s best liaison between the folks who design the widgets and the people who buy or use them. Some of the best message development, in both good and bad times, comes from those professionals who can take a level-headed, customer-first perspective by focusing less on industry snobbery disguised in technical details and more on the core qualities of the product or service being offered.

Requiring your public relations counsel to become so deeply embedded in your industry or market can have less-than-stellar consequences. Why?  Strategic communicators are most effective when they can create messages that are relatable to customers when things are going well and empathetic to your audience when things don't go as planned. Becoming entrenched in a particular industry for a long period of time can cause even the best PR professionals to lose sight of this and formulate more passion about their given industry than the people their industry serves.

I've been a communications strategist in the utilities industry for the past thirteen years, yet I've had the privilege to work alongside talented PR professionals who have entered the utilities world from the outside rather than from the inside. They've offered fresh perspectives, out-of-the-box thought, a customer-first priority and found new ways to tell our story – all of which made me a better professional. I've learned more from them than anyone else.

This is perhaps a broad brush and is not intended to disrespect PR practitioners who are seasoned in a given industry. After all, I’m among that group. Instead, it’s to point out that effective public relations counsel extends well beyond the walls of industries and markets.

I believe strongly that trained and tested professionals can easily make the leap from industry to industry, and perhaps offer hiring authorities something beyond their pre-conceived notions of what public relations is and is not.

Organizations hire communications strategists for a reason, and it’s not always to tell them what they want to hear or that the model of “we've always done things this way because it’s the industry standard” is good PR. It’s time to break down the walls of industry experience preferred and expand the horizons of what a trained practitioner can truly offer you and your organization.