If you have ever worked with wood, textiles or anything else that requires you to cut something to size then you may well be familiar with the adage “Measure twice, Cut once”. If you’re not familiar with this and you have ever cut something and then found you didn’t measure properly you will know the frustration that it causes.

I have adopted a similar adage for using Social Media – “Think Twice, Post Once”. Just as good email etiquette suggests that you always read through an email before hitting send, posting to blogs, micro-blogs & social networking sites requires even more thought.

Once you have posted something to one of these sites, its out there forever. You might be under the impression that as it was your post you control it, after all if you post to your blog, you can always delete the post or even remove the blog. Even Twitter has a delete button. Unfortunately, other than to provide you with a “feel good” factor these “deletions” do little in reality.

If you post you have posted, it then comes under the control of all who read and interact with what you have posted. If I comment on your picture on Facebook then my network can see the picture. If I Retweet your post to Twitter my network sees your Tweet. If you delete it from your stream, it doesn’t delete my Retweet. You no longer control the content.

So before you hit the “submit” key, I strongly suggest you Think Twice, Post Once.