Dorian Gray in a Missoni Cardigan

By John McGory

“The Picture of Dorian Gray” is a classic Victorian novel by Oscar Wilde.  The book tells a tale of a young beautiful man, Dorian Gray, who has a portrait of himself painted. 

Realizing his beauty will fade, Dorian (whimsically) expresses a desire to sell his soul to ensure the portrait would age rather than him. Dorian's wish is fulfilled, plunging him into debauched acts that visually age and disfigure his portrait, while he remains beautiful.

The novel’s prevalent themes are the vanity of aestheticism and the temptation of a double life.  Those same alluring qualities are manifesting themselves in today’s world of social media.  Businesses are selling their souls on Facebook and Twitter to remain beautiful while secretly leading a double life that can be corrupting, if not disfiguring. 

The young developed and made Facebook and Twitter.  The teens and twenty something’s got social media rolling and businesses quickly realized that Facebook was not only wildly popular, but commercially enticing.

Companies are now using Facebook and Twitter to paint a portrait of a young and hip persona. Hot music, cool products and trendy catch phrases are the rage.

But this is where the double life becomes an issue.  Companies generally aren’t run by hip, trendy people.  Bosses are often bean counting, curmudgeons, with budget and computer limitations.

Trouble for a company and its social media comes when policy collides with trendy posts.  The young are quickly disillusioned with companies that talk a good game but fail to live up to today’s new social media-driven business standards.

A recent example is Target.  The Minneapolis-based retailer built a strong following on Facebook but had a disaster when an on-line sale of Missoni products produced a run that overwhelmed its web site and caused a PR disaster involving customer service. 

Now, nasty comments seem to be the rage, literally, on Target’s Facebook page.  The company posted a comment two days ago , weeks after the Missoni debacle, asking customers how fast they could get to Target.  Here is one response:

“That depends. How fast can you fix your suck-tastic baby registry so the thousands of women who are relying on it can get the customer service that they apparently wrongly expected from your company? How about you focus on that instead of pithy Facebook and Twitter posts?”

The young beautiful company on Facebook becomes the disfigured picture of Dorian Gray.    

Facebook is not going away.  Customers are going to look for companies on social media sites and they need to be there.  Just don’t get lost in the youthful vanity of your Facebook posts.  To quote the past generation, keep it real baby.

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 John McGory is a partner at Web Face, a social media and communications firm.  Web Face (http://www.web-face-solutions.com/)  consults with companies and organizations on Facebook postings, video and other social media and Internet needs.

Social media tips to avoid being crushed like Hank Jr.

By John McGory

“We have met the enemy and he is us.” 

Walt Kelly’s famous quote from Pogo sums up today’s world of social media.  Almost every day someone is made into an enemy with their complete lack of understanding of the power of today’s media.  The only thing more amazing is how quickly the world crushes the new-found enemy.

This week’s poor sucker is Hank Williams, Jr.  Good old boy Hank conjured up in his head the idea to create a metaphor sticking Adolph Hitler and President Barack Obama in the same sentence.  He should have stuck to singing. 

This was an act of career suicide.  Hank compared the most hated person of the 20^th century with a sitting president.  The comment defies logic no matter your political views.

There was a time in the not so distant past where a slip of the tongue could slide by without a person committing professional hara-kiri.  Those days are now simply quaint memories.  It took ESPN less than 24 hours to pull Hank’s theme song from Monday Night Football.

So another person is turned into an enemy of the state by ill-conceived comments, videos or tweets.  How can people learn from this never-ending cycle of personal destruction?  A couple of columns ago we discussed the importance of combining ideas and how that leads to genius. 

Here are some ideas that will prevent you from social media suicide.  We will combine some educational disciplines to teach basic social media lessons.

1.      Not-so-free speech: Speech is no longer free.  If you combine lessons in math, English and government, it becomes clear that you can calculate what it costs in income to carelessly exercise your right to freedom of speech.

2.      No pictures please: Do what you can to stay off camera.  Studying visual arts, career counseling and math can teach anyone how a mobile device has the ability to make your $100,000 college education worthless.

3.      Personal decorum:  Combine concepts from law, history, sign language and sociology and you will soon learn that any derogatory language, reference or gesture on film or in the written word can and will be used against you.

4.      Caught in the act:  Blend concepts from visual arts, health, sex education, computer technology and law and you will soon see how videos of drinking alcohol, taking drugs, sexual activity or criminal acts shown on the Internet are never easily explained and often lead to criminal prosecution.

5.      New ideas:  Understand basic education to see how topics like outrageous metaphors, revisionist history, new math and creationism should be vetted by at least three people who aren’t close friends before you verbalize it on camera or in public.

New media is a challenge. It may be too late for Hank Williams, Jr. and many others, but you still have a chance.  Just remember we are our own worst enemies and we have to learn to protect ourselves from ourselves.

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In Your Webface is brought to you by Web Face, a Columbus marketing, social media and communications company.  Learn more at www.web-face-solutions.com.