CHAPTER 9

Be Honest and Transparent

Four years ago, I was friended by a New York State senator on Facebook. I accepted, despite not knowing the politician personally, because I admired a public servant using social media to broaden his knowledge and reach. Also, I had nearly run for New York public office myself at one point, and I figured that since I already knew a number of other state senators from that experience, I might eventually run into him, in New York City anyway. Who knows, maybe we’d become “real” friends then? So I was surprised, but not necessarily shocked, when one day while logged in on Facebook, a chat bubble popped up from the senator:

“Hey, Dave. What’s going on?”

“Not much. How are you, Senator?” I responded via Facebook live chat.

“I’m good. Hey, can you contribute to my campaign please? Every donation counts, and the next filing deadline is tomorrow, so I could really use your help.”

“Maybe,” I replied somewhat suspiciously. “Wow, it’s great that you’re using social media for your own campaign.”

“Thanks a lot. We have an event next week too. It would be great if you could come out to support me.”

“Maybe,” I said once again. Then I thought to ask, “Hey, this is the senator, right? I mean, you’re not a staff person or volunteer impersonating the senator on Facebook in order to raise money, are you?”

Silence.

I continued, “As the CEO of a social media firm and a constituent, I’d really like you to level with me. If you don’t respond at all, I’m going to assume that you’re not really the senator.”

More silence.

Then, I received the first honest message of the conversation: “I’m the senator’s assistant, Dan. Sorry about that. The senator, he’s not actually on Facebook, so we use this account on his behalf.”

In such a situation, immediate and full disclosure is necessary—I shouldn’t have had to ask whether or not I was actually speaking with the senator. I’m not sure just how much money that state senator raised through actions such as the one I experienced. Each time the campaign engaged with people under such false pretenses though, they took the chance of losing that election and tarnishing the reputation of the politician forever. Was it worth that risk just to solicit a few dollars from people on Facebook?

More recently, a Likeable Media employee had a bad experience with a major airline. After a flight full of complications, she finally arrived at her destination. Being a huge social media advocate, she posted an accurate but nonetheless damning account on the airline’s Facebook page of what had transpired. Shortly thereafter, she got not one, but two private messages sent to her by users saying how much they love the airline. One user went so far as to say, “How dare you post that horrible comment on the page? What is wrong with you?”

She clicked on the profile of this sender, only to find that the user is an employee of the airline! In fact, the other private message was from another of the airline’s employees as well. While the actions were obviously not officially sanctioned by the airline, they reflected poorly on the company, and the lack of disclosure in the messages sent to my employee was foolish and unethical at best and illegal and dangerous to the company’s reputation at worst.

BUILDING TRUST: TRANSPARENCY IS NO LONGER NEGOTIABLE

Traditional marketers have worked for years at shaping people’s opinions about brands and organizations using advertising and other linear marketing tactics. While marketers may be tempted to stretch the truth on social networks in order to achieve similar objectives, I can’t stress this point any stronger: You must be as honest and transparent as possible when using social media. Honesty and transparency build a direct relationship between you and the customer, and any deviation from these values can erode brand trust forever.

In an age when it’s virtually impossible to hide the truth, don’t bother trying. If you’re not ready to face the facts about your products or organization and share them with consumers, don’t join the conversation yet. Once you’re committed to creating a presence in social media outlets, there’s no going back, and you really have no choice but to embrace transparency. If it seems intuitive to you to be honest, that’s terrific. But too many marketers have employed dishonest tactics in trying to reach consumers, losing sight of the simple importance of telling the truth. With the advent of social media, consumers expect transparency from companies and organizations more than ever before.

Disclosure and the WOMMA Ethics Code

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) is the leading trade organization for word-of-mouth marketing and social media. WOMMA has established an ethics code around what language and behavior are appropriate and inappropriate from organizations on social networks. The code is centered around honesty. From WOMMA’s website:

       It’s all about the Honesty ROI. Ethical word of mouth marketers always strive for transparency and honesty in all communications with consumers, with advocates, and with those people who advocates speak to on behalf of a product:

        Honesty of Relationship—you say who you’re speaking for

        Honesty of Opinion—you say what you truly believe; you never shill

        Honesty of Identity—you say who you are; you never falsify your identity

It may seem intuitive, but think about how many marketers have broken this code through the years. They may have planted false reviews, pretended to be someone they weren’t, paid for positive reviews, or asked employees to write reviews without disclosing their relationship.

All of these things not only violate the WOMMA code but are also generally unethical (and some of them may be illegal in the United States, according to the Federal Trade Commission’s 2009 Guidelines, available at Bit.ly//FTC2009). Even if you’re not caught by the FTC right away, which can impose tens of thousands of dollars of fines, the potential damage to your brand reputation is enough reason to never consider violating this code of ethics.

The Golden Rule

This concept is simple and intuitive (as are many areas of social media marketing): put on your consumer hat and do unto others, as a marketer, as you would want done unto you as a consumer. Would you want to be lied to, manipulated, or influenced by untruths? Of course not. So don’t even consider these tactics as a marketer. If there’s a gray area and you have to wonder whether something is ethical or not, it’s probably not—take the high road, and don’t do it.

Consider these four guidelines to maintain transparency and avoid potential ethical issues:

1.    If you are being paid in product or other material value by a company or client, make note of it in your Facebook messages or tweets when writing about or supporting the company.

2.    It’s OK to ask customers to spread the word about your company, but if you’re offering them free products in exchange for their support, you must insist they disclose what they received in any reviews or other material they post about you.

3.    If your company or organization is doing something you don’t want people to know about, don’t think you can cover it up on social networks. Instead, fix the problem.

4.    When in doubt, disclose.

Remember, the world is so transparent now that you have to be honest and open from the very start of building your social media platform.

WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW THE ANSWER TO A QUESTION

Sometime between childhood and now, you were trained to try to answer people’s questions honestly. But if you didn’t know the answer, or sometimes out of sheer social grace, you may have learned to reply to people’s questions with the response you thought they wanted to hear. When utilizing social media, don’t tell people simply what they expect in an effort to please them. Instead, if you don’t know an answer, just say, “I don’t know—but I’ll get back to you.” People find honesty so refreshing (don’t you?) that they may be happier to hear “I don’t know” than anything else, especially a faulty response.

Transparent Banking: Educational Employees Credit Union

The Educational Employees Credit Union (EECU) is a medium-sized credit union with several dozen branches, and it is based in Fresno, California. In the highly regulated (and traditionally nontransparent!) financial industry, many institutions are struggling with how to best engage with customers using social media. For big banks using social media, the focus is not on banking itself but on the company’s charitable giving or other service initiatives.

The EECU wanted to stand out as a financial institution that really “got” social media and was willing to have an open conversation with its customers. After all, a credit union is by definition owned by its members. They, too, thought the focus of the conversation was better off being based around more interesting topics than banking—therefore much of the conversation on their Facebook and Twitter pages (Facebook.com/myEECU and Twitter.com/myEECU) focused on the Fresno area and exploring the culture and businesses nearby.

However, EECU never shied away from open and honest conversation about rates, customer service experiences, and activities with credit union staff. Take a look at the Facebook discussion in Figure 9.1.

FIGURE 9.1 EECU Deftly Handles a Difficult Situation on Its Facebook Wall

The only topics EECU won’t discuss publicly concern the personal financial information of individual customers—information that obviously requires security over transparency. At a time when most financial institutions of all sizes have been unable to create transparent communities for their customers, EECU has established itself as a market leader. Its members are more loyal to a bank they can trust online, and their policies have paid off in increased word of mouth and membership.

JUST LIKE DATING: THE MORE OPEN YOU ARE, THE BETTER … TO A POINT

Anyone who has ever dated knows that openness and honesty are key factors in establishing a relationship. When one person has trouble opening up to the other, the potential relationship is threatened—wouldn’t you think someone had something to hide if he or she were not completely candid with you? The same situation applies to your company: if you have nothing to hide, only positive outcomes will result from increased transparency.

If a date completely opened up to you the first time you went out and shared her innermost secrets in the spirit of transparency, however, it would probably be uncomfortable and strange. Similarly, as a company, just because you’re supposed to be transparent doesn’t mean you have to share trade secrets, profit margins, or insider information with all of your customers. In fact, a lot of that information would be off-putting, even to the most curious customer.

In general, though, when you share insights into your company’s values and culture and encourage an honest discussion of the decisions you’ve made, your customers will trust you more, feel closer to you, and want to strengthen their relationships with you—just like a dating relationship. Being transparent doesn’t mean you have to share everything about your organization, but the more honest insight you provide, the better.

PUBLIC FIGURES, GOVERNMENT, AND DISCLOSURE

In no sector is transparency more important than in government. You, the taxpayers and voters, fund politicians, programs, and agencies. Therefore, they have an obligation to provide public access to honest information. Just as many big companies have been slow to adapt to the social media revolution, governments large and small have taken their time in building a platform or creating any social networking initiatives. But unlike many companies, whose first allegiance must be to shareholders, the government’s first allegiance must be to constituents.

The example I began this chapter with is disturbing because the senator’s staff person basically impersonated the senator in order to accomplish an objective. The correct way for public figures, such as politicians, actors, authors, and artists, to work with social media is for them to personally use the tools. However, if they think they’re too busy to use Facebook and tweet and instead hire people to represent them, it’s best to disclose who is (or isn’t) responding to questions, starting conversations, and making posts on their behalf. Entertainer Britney Spears (Twitter.com/BritneySpears) does a great job of transparently letting the world know whether she or someone from her staff is tweeting by signing each tweet with the actual tweeter’s initials. On the political front, from Washington DC, First Lady Michelle Obama’s staff discloses who is tweeting on her behalf by doing the same thing at Twitter.com/FLOTUS.

While it’s not necessary for brands and organizations to sign or initial every social media update, it does help build trust for followers to feel like they’re communicating with an actual person behind the brand and not just a faceless organization. Ideally, your CEO feels comfortable using social media herself to connect with customers and prospects as well. The CEO is, after all, both a public figure and the top marketer at your organization.

A Transparent Politician: Cory Booker

President Barack Obama set the gold standard for using social media to help win the 2008 election—but it wasn’t actually him tweeting and Facebooking his way to the top. While most people understood when it was revealed that Obama wasn’t using social media himself, there was a discomfort level among some people due to the lack of complete transparency in the initial stages of his campaign. Cory Booker, a senator from New Jersey and the former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, on the other hand, has set the platinum standard for politicians’ honest use of social media.

Despite the many duties of running the largest city in New Jersey, and one plagued by crime, unemployment, and a failing education system when he began as mayor, Booker has done a remarkable job using social media to connect to constituents, the media, and donors. His Twitter account, Twitter.com/CoryBooker, has amassed an amazing 1.48 million followers. In addition, he has set up city agencies with social media tools so that they too can connect to Newark residents openly. Though he began the friendship at a conference offline with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, it was the continued connection online, through Facebook, that culminated in Zuckerberg giving the Newark schools a gift of more than $100 million in September 2010, one of the largest private financial gifts ever made to a city.

However, no story better illustrates the power of elected officials to connect directly to constituents than what happened on December 31, 2009. Newark resident Ravie Rave tweeted during a New Year’s Eve snowstorm that she was worried about her 65-year-old dad getting snowed in. Mayor Booker saw the tweet and tweeted back: “Please @BigSixxRaven don’t worry bout ur dad. Just talked 2 him & I’ll get his Driveway by noon. I’ve got salt, shovels & great volunteers.”

He showed up at her dad’s house an hour later and shoveled the snow. Note that Booker didn’t care about proper grammar in his tweet. He was too busy listening, engaging, and responding to his constituents.

Booker continues to be an avid Twitter user and proponent of the open Web. We’ve come a long way from the days when letter-writing campaigns and petitions were the only ways to get the attention of elected officials, and many believe Booker is ushering in a new level of much-needed transparency for future politicians.

APPLY THE GOLDEN RULE, AND LET YOUR CUSTOMERS FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU

In an age of corporate secrets, a little honesty and transparency go a long way toward building trust with your prospects and long-term commitment from your customers. When in doubt, always disclose your objectives and who you are. Insist that anyone you have paid to talk about your company or products online be open and honest and fully disclose the situation.

Just as we fall in love with people who can listen to us and we can trust, we fall in love with companies that can do the same. Wouldn’t it be nice if your customers fell in love with your transparent brand?