A Different Standard of Conduct?

By now you may have heard of the poor “social media expert” from the agency Ketchum who, upon arriving in Memphis to meet with clients, tweeted something unfavorable about the city. His comment offended the folks from FedEx, with whom he had come to Memphis to meet.

I first read of this incident via Peter Shankman, who cautioned people to “Be careful What you Post“. Today, Chris Brogan mentioned the situation in a post entited “How Not to Use Twitter“. I responded there, but basically my thought is that if social media is about personality and authenticity, there should be some expectation that people will be .. authentic. More interesting than my opinion, however, was something left by Melanie Phung of All About Content:

in this case…the person in question is identified as a social media professional (who, in Andrews’ case represents a large agency). That changes the dynamic. The standards to which he is/should be held is higher

Social media is a new and burgeoning field: the rules are still being developed. Yet this comment seems to indicate that Andrews should have known better, unlike the tentative newbies who unassumedly “do it wrong”.

Are there concessions made for those who are just getting involved in social media? Should we expect more from those who are either self-professed or applauded experts?

Are the rules for social media really so different that we expect there to be a learning curve, or is a lot of this just common sense?

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