The Gravity of Community Managers of Social Media Pages

It was reported to me that the CEO, of what may or may not be the company I am working for, warned/reprimanded me because of an elementary grammar mistake I overlooked while Tweeting using the company’s account.

Disclaimer: I don’t know exactly what the scope and coverage of my NDA therefore everything herein, though may depict things that seem to be very much like reality, are just pigments of my imagination.

If social media can topple down tyrannies then what more toppling down a corporation?

There have been so many instances when big businesses, organizations, and public officials have been severely damaged because of social media irresponsibility.

Recently, I remember our own police force having a scandal in their Facebook page during the whole ridiculous legislation discussions regarding the cybercrime law thing here in the Philippines. They had to bring down the page and create a new one. Apparently, it was just some random guy who was managing it (no background in marketing or any related field in reaching out to consumers).

Many politicians, orgs, and businesses just hire a bunch of interns to handle this and today I realized firsthand: the power and responsibility given to whoever will be managing social media pages.

A simple wrong phrasing, grammatical error, or unintended politically or socially incorrect words and it can make or break the whole brand of a company. These things could go viral. My simple act of not being able to turn a word into a verb by adding the suffix “–ing” already had a direct cost to the company and somewhat an unnoticeable scar in its brand. I was lucky it was minimal and easily containable.

It’s really such a big responsibility. And I only realize its gravity now because I never really, hypothetically, worked for such a big company with millions of consumers.

Social media managers can even be involved in insider trading being that they somehow have influence in destroying a company’s image or making it better. Or what if spies from competitors were hired? What a crazy cold war between competitors, these insights are revealing to me.

In the end of it all, crony-capitalism and the power of the oligarchs to sustain monopolistic and antitrust-provoking “competition” is allowed, tolerated, and even encouraged by the government and the powers we have allowed the government to have.

Social media really has changed the way people communicate and trade. It has enhanced not only the democracy of governments but also of the marketplace. Consumers have become empowered and businesses have become more accountable.

But like a knife, some may use it to slice a lovely slab of medium rare steak or some may use it to hurt or threaten others. Some people choose to use this medium to communicate and make the world smaller, some people just want to share funny photos of cats, and some, of course, want to change the world for the better and enhance our freedoms and liberty.

@harryinitiative