What you say on social media can lead to ruining your privacy, reputation and brand. It’s always best to engage brain before hitting “Post” on your device, in other words, “planning”.

Most organizations will have a strategy in planning their social media in advance to coincide with their projects, goals and timelines. Most likely they will go into review by other members of staff including those on the senior leadership team and marketing. It’s helpful to keep this in mind for your own individual posts. If you aren’t careful what you say you could either lose followers or the worst case scenario be your own risk to reputation.

We’ll just dive into what I think people should not post.

  1. You dislike your job
  2. You dislike your boss or work colleagues
  3. You dislike your customers or complain about their looks/ethnicity etc
  4. You dislike your life partner or shame him/her over social media
  5. You dislike your family or shame them over social media, even in conversations they are not a party to
  6. Constantly shame other people over social media (being a troll)
  7. Don’t be an emotional vampire
  8. Don’t provide details of when and where you are going on vacation (tells the world that your property will be empty)
  9. Don’t provide details of your daily schedule (again tells the world that your property will be empty)
  10. Don’t say that you are having an affair
  11. Don’t reveal your financial status, whether you are poor or rich, need or have loans, in serious debt
  12. Don’t reveal or give any clues as to what your usernames and passwords are
  13. Scams about how many followers people can make if they listen to you
  14. Photos of you being too familiar with other people than your partner
  15. If you are going through some legal investigation don’t say anything that might jeopardise that for yourself (friends could let slip about something you have mentioned on Facebook)
  16. Your toilet habits
  17. Medical records or photos of your condition
  18. Extreme views about politics or people ie racism, homophobia.
  19. Photos with documents that users can zoom in to in order to find confidential information about yourself or loved ones
  20. Photos of strangers in embarrassing situations, obtain people’s permission before posting
  21. Post too much on yourself, show you are considerate of others too
  22. Death and other threats
  23. Lies
  24. Steel someones work/data and say it’s your own (always cite your source)
  25. Repeat the same message day after day or constantly retweeting yourself. Always come up with new and exciting stories to keep your visitors engaged.