Twitter: How Not to Get Sued, Fired or Both

While Linda debunks rules other than Twitter's standard regulations, you might abide by certain personal guidelines so you don't open yourself to a lawsuit. Additionally, people already have been fired over their Twitter comments. Do you really want to lose everything you own and a job to boot over one 140-character comment? In this article, Linda shows you how you can possibly avoid those problems.

Conclusion

Sometimes I wish I had attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, simply to learn some military strategies and techniques. Instead, I picked up Sun Tzu's book, Art of War, and I never looked back. Perhaps the title pulled me in, as it deals with an artistic endeavour. As I began to read the book, I began to understand that all it takes to build a following and to avoid "the enemy" is a bit of discipline in areas where I was weak. This discipline-building involved learning how to be aware of others, no matter the situation.

Twitter, perhaps more than any other social networking took, accentuates that awareness because of its immediacy and spontaneous nature. Plus, the written word often is more confusing, as words alone (especially only 140 characters) often cannot convey emotions and intent as well as a face-to-face encounter. So, you may misinterpret someone's tweet or someone could equally misinterpret your tweet. Either way, some discussion may be necessary to calm the waters. That discussion, however, may not happen if the waters happen to belong to your boss.

Just take the high road, think through your intent and your thoughts and remember that the world may be watching you even though you're in a room all by yourself typing away. Even if only one person catches your tweet, it may be the wrong person. Just ask the guy who was hired by Cisco.