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Ethics of Social Media

13 October 2009

With over 10 years experience in the online marketing industry, Next Digital General Manager Stephen Lord has beared witness to the evolution of social media. Here Stephen sheds some light and shares his opinion on the hot topic of ‘Social Media Ethics’.

Ethics of Social Media

How should organisations use and engage people through social media? The open nature of the tools that underpin social media raise a number of interesting ethical and strategic business questions. This article is designed to cover a few of these topics to stimulate discussion within your organisation, and is by no means an exhaustive list.

So what is Social Media?

To help create context for the topics discussed, I think it’s wise to identify a definition of social media; there are almost as many social media definitions as there are social networks.

Referring to that great social collaboration experiment, Wikipedia we find:

Social media, media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques.

So in essence, tools and online places that enable people to collaborate and share conversations.

I recently had the pleasure of hosting an event with US based Social Media strategist and author David Meerman Scott who had an interesting analogy for social media’s place in the online world.

Roughly paraphrased, Meerman Scott says: If online is a city where company websites are the shop fronts and porn (etc) is the seedy underbelly, then social media are the cocktail parties happening all over town.

So why is it important for organisations to be attending these cocktail parties?
Every day we see new studies published, confirming the key role of online in consumer buying decisions. Increasingly this is how people interact, research and share information about an organisation and its products and services. More and more these interactions include social media, through blogs, recommendations through social networks (e.g., facebook), YouTube and online opinion sites like Tripadvisor.

Recent statistics from Forrester research show that over three quarters of online Australians interact with social media in some form. The party has well and truly started and people are deep in conversation, increasingly influencing how others buy and perceive brands.

Decided that it’s time to join in? What are some of the ethical and business strategy questions raised by Social media?

Go long or go short?

There are plenty of examples of clumsy efforts by businesses moving into Social Media, which have done nothing to engage with the audience and simply caused damage to their brand. Normally, but not always, this is caused by using existing tactical campaign approaches and applying them to social media. Can you be tactical about social media? Sure you can. However, building trust in social media relationships requires a longer-term audience engagement strategy. In simple marketing terms this equates to building your relationships over time, by consistently providing value to your audience.

One of my colleagues at work has a great quote from Hugh MacLeod on their desk “If you talked to people the way advertising talked to people, they’d punch you in the face”. Social media is only a small step removed from face-to-face interaction, which means your marketing behaviour needs to adapt or you better get ready to duck.

Who’s talking to me?

A current ethical topic in social media is creating a social media persona to build a conversation with your audience, as if you are one of them. (For recent interesting and spirited debate visit Mumbrella

For me, the idea of taking on a persona to either influence an audience or enhance SEO through links (the two primary goals) goes against one of the fundamentals of social marketing: building trust with your audience. The small upside is far outweighed by the increased long-term risk to your brand.

If we revisit David Scott’s theory of the cocktail party, would you really create a false persona when being introduced to someone at a party? Or in a different context, employing for a role in your business, would you look favourably on a candidate pretending to be someone else? More than likely they would be shown the door as soon as the deception was discovered.

If I close my eyes is social media still there?

A surprisingly large number of organisations still ban their employees using social media sites during work hours.

Social media is now such an embedded part of the way that people communicate, that removing its use is actually a competitive disadvantage. It can lead to lost opportunities, missed intelligence on competitors, barriers to building networks and employee reluctance to use social media for the benefit of the business. There is no better way for an organisation to learn about social media and what is being said about their organisation, than to have their employees actively involved in the social community. If you are concerned about negative impacts, then creating a social media policy can be appropriate to help companies provide clarity to their employees on what’s expected. A key element of an effective social media policy should be that information which would not be shared through other external channels should not be shared through social media.

Are you my Friend?

The blurred lines between work and life, become ever more so with social media. The delicate scenario of how and when it is appropriate to invite or be invited to join a trusted social network can make for delicate conversations both within an organisation and with external connections.

I am a big believer that if you are in doubt about it, then just politely say no.

To ghost or not to ghost?

Is a companies CEO blog, not written by the CEO, still a CEO blog? To social media purists that’s a resounding no. Social Media is about interaction between people, so if it’s not the actual person communicating then it’s fake and fails in the area of truth and transparency.

It’s accepted practice in a range of other marketing fields, such as PR and public speaking, that the person who is credited with the communication, may not have written part or all of its contents. My personal thoughts are that it is acceptable and inevitable for a level of social media communication to be assisted, as long as the thinking and ownership remains with the individual. Ideally in these situations be as open and transparent as you can about how the content is developed.

Summary
Using social media brings some unique challenges for organisations; however it also presents great opportunities to develop a deeper relationship with customers and end users. Selecting a long term, open and transparent approach can go a long way to addressing the questions that are raised by social media, both now and into the future.

Starting his career in marketing in the marine industry, Stephen has moved on to work with numerous leaders in the communications space, and is currently the General Manager of one of Australia’s leading digital agencies Next Digital, providing innovative digital media & marketing solutions to clients such as QANTAS, FORD and Tourism Victoria.

Written by: Stephen Lord

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