An interesting post went up recently on Lauren Fernandez’s blog, “LAF.” In it, she and Kasey Skala (@kmskala) discussed their issues with a recent PRSA blog post that went up about millennials handling social media for companies.

The very valid and well-thought out points that Lauren and Kasey made about why it’s so important—no matter what age you are, or what generation you fit into—that every company that engages in social media have a viable, well-thought out and comprehensive social media plan got me thinking about the reality of social media in a 24/7 business climate:so

Is social media creating a “no-mistakes allowed” online landscape for businesses and brands?

As social media continues to dominate our lives, with upwards of 51% of US adults now engaged in some type of social network, and the ability of the Internet to literally categorize and record EVERYTHING that is placed online—every conversation, every tweet, every document—have we actually created for ourselves a business landscape where no mistakes are allowed? In other words, can we actually afford to publicly experiment anymore in business endeavors, or are we forever doomed to realizing that any mistake, any little mess up, will follow our brand online for literally the life of our company?

I’m curious to what you all think; I have my own idea about this (and if you really want to read that now, just check out my comments to Lauren’s post here), but I would love to get even more intelligent insight from the comments and conversations below.