fica

Social Media Reaches Far and Beyond

Prue Younger, CEO Message

A few years ago, no one would have ever told me I would be looking after six Facebook pages, counting the Likes, the friends and sharing the platform for the purposes of marketing more than radio and print material. And to add to that it has exploded to Snapchat, Instagram and now TikTok!

Where to next one may ask and how powerful has Facebook become? You do get to hear the good, the bad and the ugly stories and in forestry its becoming a well oiled machine. Everyone I know has a Facebook page, has a social media presence – can share, can tag your mates into a site they have never been before, just like that – and then you can boost and you pay an arbitrary amount to boost to thousands and to people you have no association with? Lifting your ratings can be easily achieved in a short time and building up a Facebook page is pretty exciting. I know over the period of my time at FICA we started with a following of 125 and have now grown that to well over 1100. A word of caution though, posts can end up anywhere as people share and tag others into the post.

Recent postings that have made their way over my desk have taken me aback. The quality of posts and the activity being posted on forestry sites has left me a bit dismayed. I have been shown footage posted on a very prominent forestry Facebook site including the faller stopping during the back cut to adjust the camera, the faller not retreating and observing as the tree falls, and again not looking up to monitor tree top movement and not assuming correct body position to allow this. One instance is of the faller with his hand on the tree as it falls while he watches the camera. It goes on – a faller clearing scrub around the base of a tree after felling cuts started, and this was on a tree being used as a driver. All clearing and preparation at base of tree and establish-ment of escape route is to be done before felling cuts start and it is critical when tree driving to minimise time trees are in a cut up state before being grounded. Definitely incorrect warm start technique. To name a few more – left arm bent instead of straight, saw bar pointing to front of operator instead of to left of body and a basic Level 2 chainsaw operating error. Tree drives being done with driven trees not having wedges in the back cut are also becoming very common. The other concern is that these posts are on a platform that can go viral, like the young girl videoed the other month, standing at the window calling a goat the F–bomb! (Shocked at what comes out of the mouths of babes these days.) FICA has been working exceptionally hard in spending truckloads of money on positive workforce recruitment campaigns the last 18 months and through sheer negligence that hard work can be dumbed down immediately. If you do something irresponsible online, as well as damaging your own reputation and potentially harming others, you may be subject to formal disciplinary procedures and possibly lose your position in your workplace or in the industry. And you might ask what counts as irresponsible? Use your common sense. If it is hurtful, defamatory, libellous or inappropriate in the physical world, it is online too. Irresponsible behaviour can include: •making derogatory comments about individuals or organisations, even as a joke, •sharing confidential information about others, •sharing sexually explicit, racist, homophobic or inflammatory material, •flaming or trolling – deliberately provoking arguments, or disruptive behaviour, •making allegations about others. There are two golden rules to follow. 1.If you would not say it to someone’s face in a public place, don’t say it online. 2.Do not rely on privacy settings – anyone who can see your content can download it, copy it, take a screen shot and then share it publicly.

Your digital footprint is the data trail left by your interactions in the digital world. It is a public record of what you said, what was said about you, what you liked, retweeted or shared and where you are or have been.

This information on Facebook as we know is often used for marketing purposes and employer checks. It also makes it very easy for others to gather information on you to impersonate you or commit fraud. Less public, but something you need to remember is that there is also a record of what you have clicked on, what you’ve searched for and your IP address. Remember, they will find you!! You may want to think about what you want your social media use to say about you. Try to keep your personal and professional identities separate. Communicate positively, not negatively and choose quality over quantity. I read this quote about social media the other day which might be the take–home from this article… “some people need to realise that Facebook is a social network not a diary”.