Like your PR job? Then keep your Twitter trap shut

May I have an adult conversation with you about social media, man to man—or man to woman, as the case may be?

It is not my intention to preach or command but rather to gently suggest. Even before the advent of tweeting and blogging and friending, ours was a free country. It remains your call, and yours alone, to decide whether it’s worth more to maintain your freedom to tweet than it is to keep your job.

What raises this question, of course, is the increasing incidence of people spoiling their stature or losing their jobs as a result of misguided missives on Twitter or Facebook or blogs.

A recent viral flameout was the firing of the social media consultant—and subsequently, his former agency—for accidently dispatching a gratuitous F-bomb tweet about Detroit drivers through a client Chrysler company account.

The young man’s instantaneous offing has inspired spirited Chrysler critics on this and other websites. They denounce the company for being “heartless in firing someone who made an honest mistake,” “inconsistent in its values (Eminem is the company’s advertising spokesman),” and “tone deaf in its understanding of social media.”

All of which may be true.