Social Media Etiquette email you can borrow

[Alex Snyder]

As a dealer group who carries quite a few franchises (one of which being Toyota), and has quite a few employees, we come across some of our employees not doing the smartest things online. In particular, we've had a few employees saying bad things about Toyota on facebook.

If you're like us, you might want to take a minute to check out some of your own employees and give them this food for thought:

From: Alex Snyder
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2010 10:06 AM
To: Everyone
Subject: Word of Caution

Good morning everyone,

As we all gain more and more of a voice with fantastic websites like facebook, twitter, forums, etc. each of us are now more seen and read than ever before. You might not see things this way, but even if you work for Checkered Flag Porsche or Drivers World you are still a representative of Checkered Flag Toyota. Each store creates profit for everyone at Checkered Flag. So Drivers World puts food on the table for the Hyundai employees and Honda puts food on the table for those of you who physically work at VW....and vice versa.

When you lash-out against a brand on one of these websites it is there forever.

Let's say 3 years from now, the opportunity arises for you to get a promotion. That promotion requires that you move to a different brand; a brand that you posted some bad things about on facebook. Someone will bring that up. It might not effect your promotion, it might not effect how your coworkers view you, but it could put you in a bad spot with a customer or a representative from that brand. It would ultimately hurt the company you work for, whether that company is Checkered Flag or not.

There may be a bandwagon to get on today, but are you sure you want to ride that bandwagon for the rest of your life? Just something to consider.

Alex Snyder

P.S. I know - sometimes I should take my own advice