Social Media Opinion South Africa

Upping the ante on social media

We are so proud of our "boytjie" Trevor Noah for taking over from Jon Stewart as the late-night television host on Comedy Central. 'The Daily Show' is one of the most prestigious television host spots in the US and Noah will become the first African ever as well as the youngest ever.

As young as he is, Noah knows the power of social media and how it drives his reputation. But perhaps he has forgotten that in cyber space his reputation is in the hands of untrained, uncensored, anonymous third parties who can spread negative, damning content as quickly as he can enhance his profile.

Upping the ante on social media

He is a comedian, and a really good one at that, so the volume and breadth of data about Trevor out there is staggering. Critical to his reputation, however, is that he has left a trail which never forgets and is open to the whole wide world - a world of instant gratification where people react before thinking.

And a world where the context of the tweet at the time is lost and unrecorded - posing the risk of historical data mining being easily misconstrued.

While twitter can raise your profile to new heights it can take you way under in nanoseconds. While the world and especially South Africa celebrates our protégé with:

Upping the ante on social media
Upping the ante on social media

Some old tweets are being dug up and are destined to haunt him:

Upping the ante on social media

Perhaps we should start a #whatshouldtrevordo? Essentially there is not much he can do in terms of the old tweets - they are not erasable.

Our advice: keep using social media to boost your own profile, but beware of the context they're posted in; that tonality is easily misinterpreted in text (not least in less than 140 characters); and that the elimination of those two is a critical risk to your reputational legacy when sarcasm and satire are your primary tools as a comedian.

Bottom line: social posts in writing are "publication in concrete" on a platform that never goes away. Be careful what you tweet - they could come back to bite you.

About Grace Belger

Grace Belger runs the Meropa media training division and has conducted media training and crisis communication workshops for over 100 clients who have ranged from multi-nationals, listed entities, government entities, a rock band and a Kgosi.
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