Social networking sites have proven to be powerful corporate marketing and public relations tools, but two recent high-profile incidents on Twitter reveal the unique dangers they harbor. Chrysler and Aflac learned the hard way over the past week that social media policies, while necessary, are not foolproof, reports Stuart Elliott at The New York Times.

Until last week, a company called New Media Strategies handled Chrysler's Twitter account. Last week one of New Media's employees posted on Twitter, "I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to drive," including an expletive before the word "drive." The employee was fired, New Media apologized, and then Chrysler decided not to renew its contract.

Aflac's Twitter fiasco involved comedian Gilbert Gottfried, whose voice animates the duck in the company's television ads. On Saturday Gottfried posted on his personal Twitter account jokes about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which makes up three-quarters of Aflac's business. Aflac fired Gottfried, stopped airing ads using his voice, and is now looking for someone new to be the voice behind the duck.

With social media, anyone can have access to the bully pulpit at any time, and it can be tricky knowing when to avoid mixing business and personal thoughts, experts caution.   

"[T]here are people in your company who forget when they post on a blog, on Twitter, on a Facebook page, that it's out there--and it's out there at warp speed," says said George E. Belch, marketing professor at San Diego State University. "I don't think people can always turn off their personal lives and say, 'I'm crossing over to corporate brand communications now.'"

For more:
- see Stuart Elliott's article at The New York Times

Related Articles:
Twitter blocked in Massachusetts legislature
Employee social media use and the law
Are employees entitled to trash the boss on Facebook?
Report: Facebook users in the workplace are "voyeurs"