Additionally, not only do we have to consider the impact of today’s messages on the various audiences of today, but also yesterday’s messages and tomorrow’s audiences. For example, with a little research of readily accessible information, one can find messages I posted to discussion groups 21 years ago. The Internet has a long memory, and some things it may never forget.

So what do we do?

If you talk to social-media users who are in their teens and twenties, many don’t see a problem. In their eyes, there is little reason to segment their lives or to worry how the future may judge their actions of today. Rightly or wrongly, many seem to believe that future society will have no choice but to accept them in toto—something my partner and I call the “socially integrated self.” This perspective may prove naive, but in a world where true privacy is becoming harder to preserve, society may have no choice but to adapt.

For those of us who have lived in a society where personal and professional and even past and present have remained fairly separate, this world of integrated identity may be a challenge to accept. As professionals in the social-media field, I wish we could say we have a definitive answer, but we don’t There are just too many factors at play.

Will the trend continue toward persona unification? Will the next generation of social networks integrate new tools to preserve the boundaries between personas? Will the tools to protect privacy outpace those that seek to see through our walls between personas? The future is unclear, and prognostication is fool’s game.

Rather than predictions, we offer our clients and customers the following five questions to guide them before sharing anything via a social network:

• Am I speaking with a positive voice?
• Is my message in alignment with my core beliefs?
• Does it support our company’s mission?
• Does it reflect well on our brands?
• Will others find it useful?

While we may not be able to control how our various worlds intersect or that everyone will agree with what we have to say, as long as our messages are in alignment with our principles, we should not fear leaving footprints in the social sand. It is precisely for the impact of those footprints that we are sharing something on the Web.