Don't tweet yourself into the unemployment line. Here's an easy tip.
At best, errant tweeting can leave you embarassed. At worst, it can leave you unemployed.
This week, a social media professional accidentally tweeted inappropriately from the Chrysler account he managed, lost his job, and now his agency has lost the account.
But this isn't an isolated incident. Last month, a Red Cross employee accidentally tweeted about a night of drinking; she didn't lose her job after the misfire. And there were plenty of similar cases before that one.
All of these faux pas were honest mistakes, but they show how disasterous inattentive tweeting can be. Realizing that most of these errors occurred while using a phone-based application, we at Luckie decided it was time to put serious thought into a policy to address this issue.
We put our heads together during an all-day, non-billable think tank and came up with an extensive crisis-aversion plan. And now we'll share our ingenious idea with you:
Use separate applications for professional and personal accounts.
Frighteningly simple fix, right? There are dozens and dozens of Twitter applications, and you're probably very fond of your choice application. But simply find a comfortable second option. I'll be using Twitterific and Twitter for iPhone. My colleague David Griner will be using Echofon as his backup to Twitter for iPhone.
Share your favorite applications in the comments, and if you've topped our brilliant resolution to this problem, please share that as well.
Kammie Avant is a social media planner for Luckie & Company. You can contact her by e-mail or follow @KammieAvant on Twitter.
Photo credit: Zac Peckler on Flickr.