Considering recent events involving a certain Representative and an inappropriate photo accidentally released via Twitter, many people are asking themselves… “Really? He sent THAT photo to a college girl?”

…Or maybe you’re asking, “Is ANYTHING private on social media?”

The answer is No.

I hope all of you business owners, government big wigs, and national leaders heard that. NOTHING is private when you put it on social media. It doesn’t matter if you checked the little box next to “Super Ultra Mega Private”, or if you hand selected each and every friend and follower… Consider anything that you put on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social networking site to be public.

It doesn’t take much time or effort to just copy and paste someone’s private Twitter status and retweet it to the world. You can’t guarantee that every friend and follower you have isn’t going to start gossiping about your private posts. There’s always the possibility that your account could be hacked into. Then, there is Mr. Weiner’s downfall… you could accidentally send that private photo by Twitter mention (which is public) instead of Direct Message (which is “private”). Oops.

Obviously, a professional Twitter account shouldn’t be used for any personal matters to begin with. Most of us probably didn’t think this needed to be said, but any social networking profile that is set-up to represent your business should be used for ONLY that purpose. When you start intermixing personal conversations with your professional networking, trouble is sure to arise. Apparently, Anthony Weiner didn’t get that memo.

So let’s all come away from this ridiculous “scandal” having learned something: Don’t put anything on the internet unless you are prepared for the whole world to know about it.