In an excellent article at Business Week (yes, that can still happen) Sarah Lacy writes about the trail that all of our social media habits leaves. Of course, it seems logical and makes great sense when you step back but when you are in it a lot of folks forget who see what they are saying / doing and the consequences can be dire.

She uses a great example of how Ferris Bueller narrowly escapes being caught by the ever incompetent high school principal, Mr. Rooney, while cutting school to attend a Cubs game (What high school kid in Chicago hasn’t, right?). Her take on the many ways that Ferris would get caught today is interesting.

“Imagine Ferris cutting class today. First, Mr. Rooney probably would have TiVo’d (TIVO) the game and had the chance to replay every hit caught by a fan. Ferris would have to resist the urge to change his Facebook status to “Ditching school today. Who’s in?” He couldn’t blog about his day afterwards. Nor could he post pictures on Yahoo’s (YHOO) Flickr. And the hardest for any Web 2.0 devotee: He couldn’t Twitter about any of it—not even convincing that snooty maître d’ he was the sausage king of Chicago. (Although he could Yelp about those valets who racked up the miles in Cameron’s dad’s Ferrari.)”

The premise of the article is the idea that because we are so in touch, it’s hard to hide anymore. If the big players are making boneheaded moves like Facebook head of PR Brandee Barker did regarding the Facebook-Microsoft deal just imagine what is happening millions of times every day. Lacy does a very good job of examining the many positives of our new level of communicating as well.

So how does this apply to business? Actually, I am not sure. One interesting point, however, is that it appears that the visionaries like Marc Andreessen and Mark Zuckerberg (do you have to be named Mar(c)k to be a visionary these days?) are convinced that people want to be in touch with everyone all the time so they can make sense of the world around them. Lacy contends that maybe the ways we “stay private” in the offline world are there for a good reason…….we all need some peace and quiet from time to time. I tend to agree.

Maybe one way that a small business person can benefit from exposing his world to the rest of the world is just making sure that the only thing they do over these various social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed is talk about their business. Sure, some of the purists will bark that these should not be commercial venues but who’s kidding who here? The main reason I write what I write is to promote my business and find folks I can work with. I used to be a bit more altruistic until I realized that having everyone know everything I am doing at every minute can be more annoying than exhilarating. The reason I feel this way? Well, as my wife will attest….I screw up a lot …. but you won’t hold that against me now will you?

SMB Takeaway – Social media is still an unknown entity for small business. What is known, however, is that you leave a trail back to all things be they good or bad. Be careful how you use these mediums. Their bite may well be a lot worse than their bark.

Thanks and have a great day!