Mediaboss Marketing

To tweet or not to tweet?

As companies flock to Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites to tout their brands, many businesses are still struggling to strike the balance between immediacy and the need to exercise enough control to prevent ill-advised posts, tweets and other social media embarrassments.

A pornographic picture recently sent from US Airways' official Twitter account is a fresh example of a social media misstep. In that instance, the company says an employee didn't mean any harm, but mistakenly posted a picture of a naked woman playing inappropriately with a toy plane.

Examples of embarrassing posts on official company social media accounts are legion: a reference to "hitting the hay" during a horse-meat scandal, a glib mention of "not being able to tell the truth" and posts making light of airplane crashes, to name just a few.

Separately, the actions of individual employees using their own social media accounts sometimes have brought unwelcome attention to their employers. Perhaps the most infamous example of 2013: the public relations professional who turned to Twitter to write, "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!"

Where being quick on the trigger can be risky, there is an upside to a timely post.

Gordon Fowler, president and CEO of Sacramento's 3fold Communications, said a quick response to a pop-culture phenomenon can bring much more exposure to social media messages that would otherwise go unnoticed.

"People are trying too hard to be relevant," said Fowler, who recently invited people to get over the sourness of tax day by visiting the company's "Tax Day Bitter Bar" for a lunchtime lemonade. Guests were then invited to take pictures and share them via social media.

The three most popular U.S. social media platforms -- Facebook, Twitter and Instagram -- were conceived and continue to serve primarily as platforms for millions of individuals to connect, but more and more businesses are using them to reach customers. Some 93 percent of marketers use social media to reach a vast and growing audience, according to statistics complied by social media expert Erik Qualman. More than 1 billion people use Facebook, while Twitter boasts of 115 million active users monthly.

Local communications professionals agreed that staying out of the social media pool is not an option.

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Crowdfunding was seen as a way to marry the worlds of social media and venture capital, but the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has issued new guidelines that largely ban social media from the relationship.

Michigan businesses that were planning to use sites like Facebook and Twitter to inexpensively get the word out that they are looking to raise capital for expansion projects or to get off the ground are now consulting with attorneys and trying to figure out their next steps.

"It's going to extremely limit, if not completely close, the ability for businesses to use social media," said Thomas Coke, an attorney who works in business development for Grand Rapids-based VerifyValid, which runs a business-to-business payment service.

Issuers must be headquartered in Michigan, and the offering may be made only to Michigan residents.

Social media use isn't referenced in the Michigan law, so investors have interpreted the law to allow for its use.

The maximum a company could raise is $2 million if it makes audited financial statements available to investors as part of the offering. If not, the maximum is $1 million.

Securities may not be resold within nine months to any non-Michigan resident.

The issuer must provide quarterly reports to its investors and the state of Michigan for as long as the shares remain outstanding.

In 2012, President Barack Obama signed the JOBS Act, which created the possibility for equity crowdfunding, which opens up investment opportunities for those who previously were not allowed to receive a request to invest -- their annual income or net worth was not considered large enough to be considered an accredited investor.

The SEC defines an accredited investor as someone with a net worth of at least $1 million, or who has income of more than $200,000 in the previous two years. An unaccredited investor falls below those financial thresholds.

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