What not to Tweet
Wednesday, March 2, 2011 at 2:00PM I just finished reading Jay Shephard's piece on his Gruntled Employees blog about Cosmic Law in social media.
You should read it too, but the long and short of it is that you can put most social media related risks to bed by bearing in mind the simple "cosmic law":
that the wrong people
will see what [you] write...
This brought to the surface something I have been thinking about since I joined Twitter. When (if ever) is it right to tweet about a client or work you are doing for them?
There are some black and white issues here of course (from the perspective of a solicitor qualified in England & Wales, but I guess similar rules apply to most lawyers), but also a whole load of grey areas.
Stuff you mustn't tweet
You must keep the affairs of your clients (and former clients) confidential unless they agree otherwise. So tweeting anything which could possibly identify a client or their matter is out unless they agree to it.
Hopefully this will be absolutely self-evident to any lawyer worth the name.
There are also some restrictions under Rule 1 of the Solicitor's Code of Conduct 2007 which could apply.
For example, tweeting anything which might prejudice the administration of Justice (re-tweeting links to material which is subject to an injunction?) or anything which might bring the profession into disrepute.
Stuff you shouldn't tweet
Once you get past the absolute restrictions things get more difficult.
If I had a tricky contract negotiation meeting this morning (I didn't by the way!) then I could easily tweet about it without risking identifying the client or revealing confidential information:-
"Nightmare meeting this morning
other side are being really difficult"
or something equally exciting and witty. After all, there is no way that anyone reading that is going to identify who I am talking about.
However, this is where Jay's Cosmic Law comes into play. And this is why my own personal rules extend beyond the legal and professional restrictions.
The "worst person" in this context (and purely this context!) is the client in question. So my rule is never to tweet or blog anything which the client in question hasn't agreed to if they would realise it was about them if they read it.
In my view it doesn't matter if nobody else would know who it was about... how impressed is my client going to be to see that tweet?
You can get away with more if you blog / tweet anonymously and alter the names, locations and details to protect the innocent, but if you use your real name then this won't really help.
This rule is pretty restrictive.
The thing is though that your credibility as a professional has to win out over your "social media marketing strategy". Otherwise, what do you have left to sell?
Any lawyers have a view on this? Am I being too conservative and missing all kinds of social media marketing "ninja" opportunities? Or is this just an inevitable consequence of being a member of a profession?
Reader Comments (6)
Enjoyable post as always. I agree with you. However, I think it's easy enough to say that you had a Nihgtmare meeting -other side being difficult sort of tweet provided you don't say it was this morning. You might instead say you had such a meeting recently, but tie it into today. E.g. bumped into colleague at coffee break and had a moan about a difficult meeting etc.
I like the "worst person" touchstone.
My rule of thumb is "Never write anything you wouldn't want your grandmother to see splashed over the front page of the Telegraph". Even though neither of my Scottish grandmothers would have read the Telegraph.
This deals with both the subject matter and the language of your tweet. It can be applied also to e-mails and other seemingly ephemeral publications.
An interesting blog and one that I too have often wondered about. I'm not a lawyer, but as an accredited workplace mediator I tweet about my day-to-day activities such as networking, running events and handling telephone enquiries. I also tweet tips and feedback, but would never tweet about individual mediations.
I'm also an independent HR Consultant and on reflection I do tend to summarise more, such as "really enjoyed interviewing for Mechanical Design Engineers today!" or "Looking forward to appraisals with my biggest client tomorrow.", or "Client has been advised by a legal helpline that they shouldn't suspend WITH pay for alleged gross misconduct."
I hadn't thought this to be an issue, but see your point as a matter of courtesy to ask the client first. However, would this reduce your credibility with them? What do others think?
Thanks Julia - some interesting things to think about.
It may just be me being paranoid, but I think with anything related to a client I take the "better safe than sorry" view.
With other meetings and people who aren't clients I tend to take the view that if they are on Twitter themselves I will mention that I have been meeting / speaking to them if it seems relevant and not confidential (the "interesting meeting with @xxx this morning" type of tweet) and I have never yet had any problems with this. Generally people seem to be quite happy to be mentioned in this way (after all that is why they are on Twitter I guess).
I suppose it really depends on the nature of you work and how the clients feel about it - interesting to see what the reaction is if you did ask them?
You are bang-on.... and it's not just lawyers - it applies to any professional person. The rule I follow is "never tweet anything I wouldn't be happy to say to the person face to face in front of my boss."
A good point, Peninsulawyer, and I'll ask my clients what they think. Some useful thoughts / pointers from ALL contributors here and I agree - don't say anything you wouldn't be willing to back up in writing or say to your nearest and dearest.