Don't get fil-A'd by a fowled-up social media strategy -- Career Center Blog

August 16, 2012

Don't get fil-A'd by a fowled-up social media strategy

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By Randy Woods
NWjobs

I Googled myself a few days ago. That's no longer an especially noteworthy act; most professionals should do it from time to time to make sure they don't see any embarrassing surprises associated with their names. Fortunately, most of the results for "Randy Woods" show my usual array of social media affiliations and article links that I've created and uploaded. (I have to add "Seattle" in my search, or else the first three pages are dominated by Randy Woods, the former La Salle University and NBA basketball star. Such is life for those of us with relatively common names.)

I'll bet Adam Smith has been doing his best to stay away from Google or any other kind of social media for the last couple of weeks. If you can't quite identify his name from the multitude of other Smiths on the web, you've probably seen his work, perhaps forwarded to you in an outraged re-tweet. Smith is the man who recorded an awkward encounter he had with an employee at a Tucson, Ariz., Chick-fil-A restaurant over the public stance of the company's CEO regarding gay marriage. In a nutshell, the video didn't go over very well. His story is a cautionary tale for job seekers everywhere who are not careful with their online brand.

The strange, silly tale of outrage over chicken sandwiches began in mid-July, when Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy publicly stated that he was against the movement to legalize same-sex marriage, citing his deeply held religious views. Ever since then, the internet has been clucking with expressions of both support and condemnation. Gay-marriage supporters crowed for a boycott of the chain and a ban on an expansion of new restaurants. Opponents rallied for a "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day" to stand behind Cathy's statements. Egged on by the notoriety, politicians inevitably joined in to score political points.

Meanwhile, Adam Smith, CFO and treasurer of Vante, an Arizona medical-equipment manufacturer, decided his feathers were ruffled enough to take direct action to show his distaste for Cathy's chicken empire. As he ordered a "free water" from a Chick-fil-A drive-through window (to ensure that the chain would get none of his money), he recorded himself berating a young cashier named Rachel Elizabeth for working at a company that he said fostered hate.

"I don't know how you live with yourself and work here," he told Elizabeth as she gamely kept her composure. "This is a horrible corporation with horrible values." Smith was so proud of himself that he posted the video on YouTube.

As these things tend to do, the video quickly went viral and blew up in Smith's face. Rather than looking like a valiant crusader, he came off as an arrogant and condescending bully, while Elizabeth was universally hailed for her politeness, professionalism and Herculean refusal to be goaded into a childish shouting match (she really deserves a raise).

Realizing his error, Smith recorded a video apology to Elizabeth for his loutish behavior. She graciously accepted it, but the damage was done. Smith's employer, Vante, fired him the day after the video was posted, issuing a statement explaining that it expects its executives "to behave in a manner commensurate with their position."

This sordid episode is an abject example of how a positive public brand is essential if you want to be perceived as a professional. Smith deserves much of the scorn being heaped on him for his poor judgment, but Cathy is also partly to blame for equating his franchise brand with his personal views and turning it into a political football. While Chick-fil-A surely got a financial boost from anti-gay-marriage activists, it will be hard to think of anything else but this raging controversy whenever the company's name is mentioned.

The questionable images you post online or your offhand comments that accidentally escape into cyberspace may not always result in a national firestorm about sexual and religious politics, but they can be the red flag that pushes your job application from the call-back file to the recycle bin. In today's constantly wired, uploaded and hashtagged world, seemingly innocent mistakes can last forever on the web and cause irreparable harm to your most important online asset: your professional brand.

Fortunately, cleaning up your web profile can be done on your own with a little bit of patience and a healthy dose of caution:

Set up a Google Alert or a TweetBeep to notify you whenever your name comes up in searches or online conversations to make sure they're in line with your brand.

Take a look at your friends on Facebook and make sure they aren't doing anything that could soil your reputation, such as tagging embarrassing photos with your name without permission.

Tighten up the privacy restrictions on all of your social media tools to ensure that only your closest friends see your updates.

If you have a snarky comment to make about a friend or colleague, try sleeping on it before you commit it to online permanence. As new job seeker Smith now knows, not everyone may share your sense of propriety.

Oh, and maybe it's best to not mention anything about chicken sandwiches for a while.

Randy Woods writes about job-search tools, networking techniques and other tips to help you land your dream job.