COMMENTS
Mike - Thanks for writing this. I'm interested in the book on transparency (I'll look for updates here, as I'm sure you'll write about it when it comes out). I agree with you on your breakdown, but do think that if you designate initials or somehow are able to personalize an organizations' tweets or stautses, the better results you will have engaging and building relationships. While a discussion on transparency and bare bone rules, I can't help but think a bit further. Folks will know they are tweeting with a company, but unless you are the Whole Foods, Starbucks or Best Buy's of the world, the transparency for results metrics change a bit. People may want to have a more personable feel if you're trying to establish your brand better or launch a certain kind of strategy with an audience. Basically, I'm putting forth that the transparency stakes differ depending on who you are, what you do and what you're trying to do and how much success you'll have. I could go on, but I'll stop:-). Thanks for getting me thinking Mike.
Lisa's tweet brought me here. And I'm glad it did.
What a novel topic, the idea of digital transparency. Mike and Lisa both have great points. I only have one thing to add: we should start from a place of 100% transparency, and remove it as necessary.
Much like criminal law cases are "innocent until proven guilty" in the US is based on compassion and the Golden Rule (strange to think of it that way, isn't it?), we should hold ourselves accordingly in every aspect. Hence why I say digital transparency is novel, as transparency itself is not new at all. But why should it be any different on the Internet? I would say it should not be any different. If I expect others to be transparent (and honest, though the lines often blur and these quickly become synonyms), then I should be transparent myself. And if am very transparent myself, then the lovely self-fulfilling prophecy of it all implies others will be transparent as well. How lovely!
This, however, has become the opposite of how we do business over the last 80-100 years as commoditization has increased and big business has taken over. I find this quite sad, don't you?
Clearly there are few "rules" - we're all just offering up our opinions and feelings. Mine are:
1) I agree (and have written similar opinions) with your position regarding CEO/people blogs, posts, etc. They need to be clearly identified.
2) I semi disagree with your first point. I agree that a company can and often should have a voice, and that several individuals can contribute. I believe, in social media applications (same spirit as #1 above), that each person should identify themself (maybe with initials in a signature). Such a practice maintains the spirit of transparency and keeps the organization on the proper path.
Readers now expect this practice throughout social media. Authors picking and choosing when to identify themselves flirts with danger.
PS: I am struggling with this technique in my practice. I believe that, when a tweet or Facebook post includes a link to attributed work, no ID needs to be flashed in the original tweet. In essence, the authorship is revealed in step 2.
Bottom line, the author should be ID'd. Should there be a special call-out if the author is a 3rd party (agency)? Absolutely.
I agree with your post. I don't normally think about 'transparency' to that level of granularity, though. I think of transparency as being the default mode we live in now. And it is the norm. 200 years ago people lived in villages or small communities within cities. Everybody knew everybody else and, I imagine, most everything about everyone else. The aberration was the last 75 years or so when we moved to the suburbs and telephones provided private conversations. I think, with social media, we're back where we belong. Like it or not, it's become very difficult to hide anything. Remember Hillary's gaffe re dodging bullets on the tarmac? Truth and Transparency = Trust. It's all good.
When you read a CEO's post, clearly we expect the CEO to have written or at least read and accepted that information as reflecting his or her opinion.
We know that those CEO's are busy and have back office support. (Just as many have had speechwriters, even pre-Internet! How many of us have written a client letter for a senior manager’s signature.)
Still, personal posts are supposed to be from a person.
Isn't one of the rules of blogging for business... make sure the person posting has the time and passion for it? Ditto for Facebook and Twitter engagement. Better to give the job to someone else and let the CEO occasionally post on something important.
Outsourcing is okay when it works, but too much of it without true attribution… how is that going to figure into the “Know, Like, and Trust” social media equation long term?
As for Company Blogs/Facebook/Twitter, I think companies should let the world know who's creating the content, not just for transparency but because it can help strengthen their Brand. Put a face on it. There are entire consultancies built around personal branding in a large corporate context. Why? Because business is ultimate about personal relationships.
Look at Dell. They list many of their varied company Twitter accounts on their website with the associated personal Twitter account of the person who writes those specific company Twitter posts. That gives us those Company Tweets in a context - personal and business. Building the "know/trust/like" factor.
On the other side -- if there's no personal context to the company tweets, it makes me wonder, why? Perhaps that company is gaming my trust -- delegating it to someone that a customer might later feel didn't deserve it and maybe doesn’t know the company much beyond the supplied list of “strategic posts/tweets” that need to go out every day.
But then... I'm a little old school. To me, in business, Integrity is everything. And that means transparency.
Thanks, Mike, for starting an interesting conversation.
Looking forward to other comments about this.
-- Robin