Twitter is a great tool for public relations and a social-media monster that may only grow in audiences and importance.
Yet you can pack a lot of trouble in 140 characters.
Public figures -- actors and rock stars, politicians and professional athletes -- have learned this the hard way.
It's a lot easier to (1) open mouth and (2) insert foot when you don't have to wait for television cameras to show up or reporters to interview you, and instead there's an outlet for your every thought, whether you're at the computer or carrying around a smart phone.
Twitter can be a powerful tool for good when it comes to public relations and sharing information.
The bad side, however, can't be ignored.
There are plenty of horrible tweets that became famous after famous people said them, and tried to take them back, then learned that the Internet is forever.
I want to talk about something other than the typical racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise stupid comment a public figure put on Twitter.
What interested me more was the photo that comedian and actor Russell Brand posted on Twitter of his new wife, Katy Perry.
The shot is a candid, with her apparently in bed and just waking up.
He thought it was funny. And he is a comedian.
Katy Perry isn't a comedian. She's a singer, a pop star, and a beautiful one.
Image -- and photos -- are quite important to public figures. There's a lot of research on how audiences react viscerally to photos of actors, musicians, politicians and other people in the public eye.
A photo can go viral quickly today. This photo made the rounds quickly, getting reposted all over the web, because it ran counter to all of the other photos of Katy Perry that showed off her beauty, which can't be discounted as a selling point for pop stars. Or actors. Or any public figure.
Think of how many hours actors and singers like Katy Perry spend on personal trainers, hair and makeup and clothes so they look perfect for magazine photo shoots, TV interviews and the red carpet. Russell Brand punctured all of that with a single careless photo.
Now, his wife got a lot of sympathy for what he did. And he seems like a genuinely nice guy. So this wasn't a total gaffe. Yet that one bad photo of a regular-looking woman, a human being, waking up in the morning, sticks with you. Despite the hundreds and hundreds of other photos of Katy Perry looking gorgeous, it's hard to forget the one where she looks like an everyday person.
That's the power of photos. And it's the danger of Twitter, which is a powerful tool that you can mishandle, with a single tweet, or photo, changing your public image or your career forever.
There's no rewind button. So be careful out there. When it doubt, don't tweet it out.