Credit Where Credit is Due
Social media is obviously a great way to interact with people from around the world. You can talk with them, share photos and videos, and engage in digital marketing with your social networks. Although all of this interaction can be fun and very productive in a business setting, we as the users of social media must be very aware of the content we are sharing with others. We want others to believe and trust the words we say, whether they are our own original ideas or content that is borrowed from another site, we must make sure we cite any content that does is not our own.
PLAGIARISM AND PERSONAL BRANDING
When I interact with others through social media I am very aware of my personal brand that I am portraying with every word I type. The things I say, do, or post on social media reflect me as a person and I try to keep these things consistent across all platforms to share with the world. My posts are often short, sweet and to the point, whether I update my status on Facebook, re-tweet an interesting article about a film I enjoy, or post a new picture on Instagram. However I always try to keep my content original, but if I do share something that is not mine, I give credit where credit is due. The reasons to credit borrowed ideas are uncountable, but most importantly it is because if someone had a great enough idea that inspired you to re-post it, that person should get rewarded for the inspiration of you and anyone else in the future.
Personal branding is everything when it comes to social media and online presence. Our task is to show the world our true selves through social media, and we do not want to confuse the people in our social networks by presenting a certain personal brand on Twitter which conflicts with the one we have portrayed on Facebook. We want the readers of our Tweets, Facebook wall posts, Tumblr blogs, etc. to have faith in what we are saying. We must gain our readers’ trust and to do so we need to notify them of content we may have borrowed in each of our posts. To do this, citations must be both in-text as well as listed at the end; readers will then be able to access the source from which the content came to either check that it is accurate and relevant, or to read more on that particular topic.
The goal as a young professional, such as myself, is to paint the image of a respectable, outgoing, and engaging individual on the many social media platforms that I come in contact with. I not only want this content to be presentable to a future employer, I also want to show off my social media to them as an asset to show them my expertise and willingness to use social media in my career. I want to use my social media skills to my advantage to show an employer what I can do for them in a digital marketing sense. This will involve gaining an employer’s trust and constructing my posts as if the employers were some of my readers. As I mentioned above, posts with borrowed material will definitely need to cite information from the source so the employer will know I am not stealing anyone’s ideas, rather using it to enhance my own thoughts and material.
This is where creating our own content or giving credit to borrowed content becomes extremely important. An employer wants to know if we are capable with not only our social media accounts but also the company’s various accounts as well. We need to prove to the employers that we are responsible, respectful social media users and will only post content that will not shine a negative light on ourselves, or especially the company as a whole. It is now that plagiarism can become an even bigger problem.
Employers will look at our entire social media portfolio to gain insight into our personal brand to match our attributes from what they see to the attributes of the company. Social media can be a very opportunistic tool to tell future employees about ourselves, however we must use this tool in a very precise and careful way. We must construct a knowledgeable, educated portrait of ourselves across our many social media platforms, which includes trustworthy content, whether original or borrowed. Our personal brands are made up of the collective posts we have on our social media, which is why we need to stray away from even the slightest bit of plagiarism in our content. We must give credit to our sources, for our personal brand and for theirs.
WHY PLAGIARISM IS UNACCEPTABLE
Plagiarism can be a scary word, especially when we’re at school. Teachers and professors continuously remind us of how serious plagiarism really is and how it will affect our papers, grades, and transcripts, but they rarely tell you its impact on our lives outside of school. I, however, am fortunate enough to have a professor at Seneca college that really illustrates the importance to give credit where credit is due, not just in the classroom, but in real life, such as when using social media.
Wikipedia defines plagiarism as, “’wrongful appropriation’ and ‘stealing and publication’ of another author’s ‘language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions’ and the representation of them as one's own original work” (“Plagiarism”). Everything we post on our social media is published to the world, so by Wikipedia’s definition anything that is does not originally come from our own thoughts must be cited as an external author’s work.
Plagiarism is completely unacceptable in and outside of school. Stealing is stealing. Whether you’re stealing someone’s gum or someone’s ideas, it is absolutely wrong. For example, if I made a movie script and someone took the script and said they were the author of it, we would allow agree that this instance is a clear example of plagiarism. It is the same situation if someone were to copy this blog and re-post it as his or her own. Plagiarism is plagiarism and it is always unacceptable. The only way around these situations is to give the original author the credit they deserve by citing the source and making it accessible to readers.
PLAGIARISM ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Plagiarism on social media platforms occurs more frequently than we probably notice. For example, posting a silly meme on a friend’s Facebook Wall without at least sharing the site from which you copied it is a form of plagiarism. Or, if you want to copy what someone has already tweeted but put it in your own words, because the idea was originally theirs you are plagiarizing their work. When people in your social networks see these kinds of actions two things can happen:
1. They might give you all the credit for coming up with that idea that does not actually belong to you, or;
2. They have seen the original message and will know that you copied this from a previous source. This can be very detrimental to your online presence and personal brand.
It is unfair to the original creators of the content to borrow their material without at least sourcing it. They deserve recognition for their hard work that they put into their content, just as we deserve credit if someone were to borrow the content we publish on our personal social media.
DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO PREVENT PLAGIARISM?
Why don’t you test out your citation skills by sharing this blog with your network? Simply follow these steps when sharing it to ensure you prevent plagiarism:
1. Compose a tweet, Facebook post, Tumblr, etc. post that will draw the attention of the reader to want to read the content;
2. Copy this blog into your post;
3. Make sure you give credit where credit is due. Use MLA citation formatting to cite where this source came from (i.e. inform your social network that you are sharing another author’s work.);
4. Share the post and inform others in your social network to do the same!
These steps act as a crash-course in sharing content without plagiarizing and will help you to maintain and protect the reputation of your personal brand. The following video is a fun reminder of why it is important to cite all of your external sources.
To summarize, social media is a great way to show off your personal brand, sharing with the world who you are and what your skills are. However, you must be very careful with the content you share, if it is your own original content then a citation is not needed, however if you are sharing another author’s ideas you must cite the source from which the idea came, if you do not do this, you are plagiarizing. Plagiarism can be detrimental to your personal brand, if people were aware of your plagiarism you would lose their trust and your personal brand will suffer. Although, citing your sources can be very beneficial as then readers will understand that your content has been informed by an external source that can heighten its relevance. So, I challenge you to cite every text you borrow from whenever you compose a tweet, wall post, or Tumblr blog.
Eerkes, Deb, and Chris Hackett. “Plagiarism Rap (Cite Your Sources).” YouTube. uAlbertaDoS: 18 Dec. 2013. Online video. 31 Jan. 2015.
Papandrea, Dawn. “Plagiarism: What it Is, What it Isn’t, and How to Avoid It in Content Marketing.” Visual.ly. Web. 31 Jan. 2015.
“Plagiarism.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 31 Jan. 2015. Web. 31 Jan. 2015.
Samavedula, Rekha. “3 Simple Tips to Prevent Online Content Theft and Plagiarism.” Latest Web Crunch. Web. 31 Jan. 2015.
Seneca College. "MLA Citation Guide: Social Media." Seneca Libraries. Seneca Libraries, 30 Jan. 2015. Web. 31 Jan. 2015.
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