Behave Yourself
Want to avoid social media blunders at company parties? Follow these five simple rules: limit alcohol, dress professionally, skip the raise talk, follow the plus-one guidelines, and bring a gift when appropriate. And remember, think before you tweet—drunk social media posts never end well! Keep the atmosphere professional to protect your career.
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Keeping yourself safe from embarrassing, or even potentially career-ending, social-media attention is a matter of following some basic rules about party etiquette. I have five:
- Keep the booze to a minimum: One drink, maybe two if you’re large or a practiced drinker. “It’s amazing that people forget that you’re still in an office environment, even though it’s more relaxed,” she says. “At the end of the day, your supervisors are still paying attention to what you’re doing.” If you want to party hard, go out with your friends later.
- Keep your outfit professional: Again, you’re still at work, so keep cleavage and leg exposure to a minimum. “It’s the same thing with alcohol—less is more,” Majcher says.
- It’s not a good time to hit up the boss for a raise: Everybody else will be trying to do the same thing, so give it a rest. “Absolutely introduce yourself or say hi and thank the host for having you, but don’t use this as an opportunity for the 25 minute pitch on why you should get more money or why Sally in the cubicle next to you needs to go.”
- The fraught plus-1 question: Stick to what it says on the official invite, and if there’s no guidance, ask someone who knows. Turning up with a significant other when you’re not supposed to is a really quick way to make things awkward.
- Gift or no gift? Standard rules apply here. If you’re going to someone’s home, bring something.
Now, there might not yet be hard and fast rules for social-media etiquette at company parties, Majcher says, but a bit of common sense can go a long way. Decide ahead of time if having your photo taken with a glass of your favorite drink in hand is OK, and figure out how to proceed from there. “If you see somebody taking a photo, and let’s say you are holding a glass of wine and it’s not appropriate,” she says, “then just say ‘hang on a second,’ and put it down.
“The next thing is the drunk tweeting,” Majcher continues. “Just don’t do it. Just. Put. Down. The. Phone. Send something the next day when you’ve sobered up. And this is also not the time to be outing anybody.” Nothing good has ever come of a drunk tweet, she says.
But what if you’re not the one tweeting or posting potentially problematic photos? It never hurts to ask for a friend to take down or untag something that could be damaging, she says. “Any time I’ve heard that, most people are fine with it, but it goes back to the rule in the beginning, which is don’t put yourself in a situation where you’re acting inappropriately.”
Majcher says she’s seeing party behavior change as use of social media has grown, and those who haven’t changed their habits will soon. “All it takes is one photo at an office party of a married guy with his arm around a coworker, which could be completely innocent, but with a glass of wine and a big hug, it doesn’t look good,” she says.