17 Sep 2009, Posted by christie in Blogging Bytes, 0 Comments

Your tweets are public – never forget that!

When we get a Twitter account, we follow some of our friends, get followed back, then start talking to each other with replies back and forth, even about very personal stuff. I see this all the time, and of course there’s nothing wrong with it as long as you realize that anyone in the world can see your tweets by default. Just go to http://twitter.com/USERNAMEHERE and you can see every tweet this person has done, unless some have been deleted. Want to know what Penelope Trunk has been up to? Just go to http://twitter.com/penelopetrunk and you have it all right there. And the point is of course, if we can do that to her, your boss or future employer can do it to you.

People are also searching for keywords, so if they are searching for a certain keyword that is in one of your tweets, your tweet will come up in their search results. That can backfire even if you’re using an odd username that’s not your real name. Remember the Cisco Fatty? She had applied for an internship at Cisco she didn’t really want, and for some reason she forgot that the whole world could see her tweets if they wanted to. Now maybe only her friends were following her, but remember anyone who’s looking at the public Twitter stream or searching for a word like “Cisco” would see that tweet immediately.

I have a friend who was tweeting about the impending demise of the company he worked for, complete with the company name! I quickly sent him a private message about Cisco Fatty, hoping to save him from an untimely termination. Wouldn’t you think Twitter-savvy company representatives would search for the company name once in a while to see if customers are talking about it? My friend kept tweeting, but he changed his last name in his twitter profile to “Fatty.”

If you decide you want only those you approve to see your tweets, just go to Settings - and check the box marked Protect my tweets. You tweets will no longer appear in the public timeline, but then you will be able to talk to your friends and family as freely as you like. Maybe you could have a personal Twitter account that’s protected, then your public account where you promote your blog like crazy!

Have fun on Twitter! Talk to strangers and enjoy it, but just be aware – we can all see it. Don’t tweet about any fatty paychecks if you want to keep them!

Photo credit: Ben Lucier