When walking the dog I’ve gotten into the habit of collecting litter and trash from the street and parks in our part of the city. Recently I collected a disturbing amount of garbage so I decided to post a photo on our neighborhood Facebook page with a note asking neighbors to join me in my practice. What I received a little while later shocked me: A post from one of the administrator/active participants saying, “We already do that—we have street cleanups in this neighborhood.” Yea, buddy, the large Hefty bag of garbage I pulled clearly says we’re a pinnacle Keep America Beautiful town—I’ll be careful not to over clean the streets.
This got me to thinking: It’s quite common to see people correcting others on social media. I’m not talking fighting fake news, I’m talking small quips that show one person “knows more” about some topic than another person. I invite you to scan your media accounts to see this. Do you know someone who does this? Do you do it? Do you follow a business or service that does it? To me this is the equivalent of correcting someone who says “Memorial Day” when they really mean “Labor Day,” and we know they mean Labor Day since it’s already August. STOP IT. We all know what they mean. Just let them live their lives and move on. Yet we all know the person who will correct that behavior. Why? For what purpose?
If you’re having trouble finding an example look for things like this: Someone posts an article saying traffic in their town is bad or housing prices in their town are “expensive.” It won’t take but two shakes of a baby to see a post from someone saying, “No. My city is the worst.”
The purpose of communication is to create mutual or shared understanding, and, if someone is correcting another online it often means they understand what it was the person meant to convey in the first place. This leads to the old adage: Praise publicly, criticize privately. Let’s apply this a professional communication context.
If you run a social media site or another medium where many people, including an intended receiver, will see a message—it is always good to praise publicly and question privately. This is a public relations 101 principle. We want to make sure people are not afraid to post on our sites or ask questions. We want to make sure folks contribute to discussions and feel welcome in our businesses and spaces. Being critical of another especially a client, student, employee, friend, or probably more importantly—a stranger could be a quick way to gain a negative reputation.
I have a handful of social media friends who I can set my watch to that will correct anyone and anything online. I bet you do too. The more important message here is from a professional context. If we’re trying to build a brand or work with people, we want make sure we’re mindful of our messages and how they’re perceived by others; and for what purpose. In the meantime, I’ll stop posting publicly about my trash pickup practice and wait another year or two for the announcement of the neighborhood cleanup. My bad.
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