Chapter 2 Reading Analysis

     This week's reading from "Social Media for Strategic Communication" was all about the ethics and legalities surrounding social media use. In my opinion, I think this is one of the most important chapters that we'll read. 

    Since social media is a place where people can post about all of the different facets of their life, it's easy to forget that your posts are never truly private. It's even more important to remember that fact when you run a business social media account. Either posting something unsavory on a personal account, or accidentally posting on the business account when you meant to post on your personal does not reflect well on you or the company and could possibly cost you your job. 

    Since the world of social media is ever changing, it is important to stay up to date with current events. Keeping up with the times can help prevent mishaps on social media. The author, Karen Freberg outlines the deadly sins of social media. One that I'll be focusing on is 'misappropriation.' Misappropriation refers to the timing of a post and its relevancy to current events or trends. An example of misappropriation given in the book s when Gap made an insensitive tweet during Hurricane Sandy promoting shopping on gap.com. Gap later deleted the original tweet and made another saying that "their tweet was meant to remind others to stay inside." This misappropriation by Gap put the company under fire and it could have been easily avoided by keeping up with current events and taking a moment to think about the post and what it may be interpreted as.