Sandile Gumede
Building a brand takes effort and time but destroying it can take 140 characters or an image that took mere seconds to snap and share on social media. This could be a career-ending move, and people, especially younger generations, ought to be careful about these “exciting” moments.
This article is prompted by the interview that soccer sensation Andile Jali had at 947 with Robert Marawa on “Marawa Sports Worldwide”. He conceded that the talks of joining Kaizer Chiefs collapsed because Amakhosi wanted to regulate or control what he posts on his social media pages. I would like to believe that this was not the deal-breaker, as Jali claims.
However, this has opened the debate about whether the employer should have the powers to determine what an individual posts on their social media accounts. The reality is that employers, who want to protect their brands, do not want to be associated with negative publicity.
Football fans would remember a situation when the Mamelodi Sundowns’ social media page published that their player, Jeremy Brockie, was among the players who were ruled out of a fixture because of an injury. Brockie replied saying he wasn’t injured. This was embarrassing, to say the least, for the Sundowns’ brand.
I know that most youngsters don’t approve or appreciate having limited freedoms, especially when it comes to social media. As someone who interacts with students almost daily, I often share stories about some companies doing social media audits before hiring people. This is where they check your social media pages and the content you post.
Some people feel that they should not be restricted in posting their pictures of the latest trends of smoking or vaping, or of either themselves drinking alcohol or holding ciders on their heads. They capture the moments in a mist of smoke and upload it on platforms like Instagram.
My argument is that there are scores of people who do what they do –smoke and drink – but they do not show off. As tempting as it is, they censor themselves by not posting pictures of themselves drinking or smoking. This is done to protect their brands or the ones that they are associated with.
As proponents of emotional intelligence would say, in the face of being angry and wanting to vent the venom in your mouth, you need to pause for a second and think of the impact of your words. And you end up responding differently, in a positive way. The same approach applied to social media could save many brands and careers.
After taking that “nice” picture or typing that sentence, before you post or upload, ask yourself if it could damage your brand or image. As unfair as Jali thought it was for Chiefs to regulate their players’ posts, it is important to note that they are protecting the player’s brand first before theirs.
Self-censorship in things that could damage your reputation and brand is important, and it has nothing to do with being control freaks. Such rules could have saved a lot of people who post their videos while they are three sheets to the wind. Jali is among other brands that have been dented because of things they post.
Sandile Gumede is a Ph.D candidate in media studies at Wits and a journalism lecturer at the IIE Rosebank College.
The Star