Twitter still baffles me a bit, even though we post at least half a dozen times a day (Follow us here, if you aren’t already: @spendmatters). Although I know it’s driving increased traffic to our site and I’ve become a regular user myself, I haven’t fully figured out the associated professional etiquette. A few weeks ago, I called out another account holder in a Tweet (since deleted) about infringing upon our copyright by taking entire articles from our site without reference or citation. They suggested something less public would have been a “more professional” way to deal with the situation. Copyright issues aside — I personally think Twitter is much less threatening than getting lawyers involved, not to mention more engaging on a community level — I don’t think I’m alone in not fully coming to grips with how best to use (and not use) the medium. And candidly, I probably make more social mistakes with Twitter than I care to admit.
There have already been a number of high profile cases of lawsuits resulting from supposedly libelous statements on Twitter. So it’s probably not the best place to go and write unfounded accusations about a supplier’s financial condition or operational practices, even if they’re true (or at least you suspect them to be true). It’s also probably not a place that you want to go complain too much about that unheated apartment or office (landlords have sued tenants for making similar statements on Twitter). It’s also not the place to go to for anything more than a cursory observation or a quick link to a subject. After all, 140 characters is quite limiting…
