The Essential Social Media Marketing Handbook

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SOCIAL MEDIA, BRANDING,AND INFLUENCE

Remember that old song “Every Breath You Take” by The Police with the recurring lyric about watching someone? Hum it to yourself every time you’re on social media as a reminder that you’re in a fishbowl.

Financier Warren Buffet said, “It takes twenty years to build a reputation, and five minutes to ruin it.” On social media, that has narrowed to five seconds. One moment of frustration or anger can go viral, reaching the world with no do-overs. It used to be that a momentary lapse, a joke told and later regretted, and a word spoken privately in anger might be forgiven or discreetly not spoken of to others. As we live out our lives increasingly on camera and captured by social media (our own ...