How important are ethics in today’s society? With the rise of social media as a main source of information, more important than ever. Consumers are beginning to rely more on social media for information about products. If something goes awry with a product, this generation’s consumer will enlist Google’s help before calling the manufacturer.

The Ethics Code at SociaLNK recognizes this trend. That is why SociaLNK clearly states, “Honest, genuine opinion is our medium.” There is a transparency in “honest and meaningful conversations” that will “enable brands to participate in communities, build trust, and ultimately help create better products, services and experiences.” Furthermore, a good Social Media Marketing (SMM) strategy relies on honesty among communities. It is the only valid way to monitor what the customer has to say about a product. To fabricate that opinion would be to do the brand itself a disservice, since any negative word of mouth should be used to improve upon the product.

Key to ethics are three of SociaLNK’s Fundamental Principles of Ethics:

• Happy, interested people will say good things about you.
• Word of mouth cannot be faked.
• Word of mouth marketing empowers the consumer.

Good ethics combined with good SMM strategy make for an honest consumer opinion that WILL help the company—either through positive WOM, or through honest but negative WOM that will allow them to improve on the product. There is no room for sweeping anything under the carpet. In good business and in life, honesty is the key to success.

How does honesty in SMM allow you to trust a company even more?

Word of mouth can be negative, positive, or neutral. You may have heard the old cliché “there is no such thing as bad publicity.” Well, this is true to an extent. Where buzz is concerned, the main issue is getting the product out there, and getting people talking about it. Since a lot of WOM is simply opinion, there’s not much that can be done about the negative talk. This is where monitoring of social media comes in. When there is a system in place for a business to monitor and analyse what is being said about a brand, there is also a greater chance of responding to negativity and addressing customer concerns—before they become a tidal wave of bad publicity.

Neutral WOM refers to the concept of interacting with consumers when there are questions about a product or service. How quickly a business responds to these inquiries will sway the customer’s opinion to the positive or negative side. That is why monitoring social media is so important. By staying on top of the customer’s needs in this way, the business guarantees a positive experience for the consumer. This works even if a problem has occurred; responding efficiently and courteously will leave the customer satisfied with the company, even if the product was a letdown.

“When companies deliver, people will tell their friends. Word of mouth marketers work to accelerate this process, replacing aggressive advertising with customer-centric service, support, and open communications.” (SociaLNK Ethics Code)

Bob Withers calls Social Media Marketing (SMM) “word of mouth, but at the speed of sound,” and explains that using SMM is a long-term business strategy.  With SMM, it’s not about “how many people you can engage, but about how engaged can you make those people.”

Is negative WOM a crisis… or an opportunity to engage with customers and respond positively to their needs?

An interesting shift is taking place in the way companies promote themselves and social media is playing a huge part. Companies are starting to take corporate responsibility very seriously as they recognise that building their brand’s reputation means being seen to act. A great way to showcase what a company is doing is to use social media to communicate and promote their socially responsible activity. An integral part of this is how companies utilize their employee’s.  Last month I blogged about the work done by Kraft which encouraged employees to play a role in a week long set of activities but this employee engagement seems to be part of a growing trend…

A great example is Intel who recently announced wide ranging initiatives to support the activities of Kiva.org (a microloan organization) and Save the children. This work is promoted via active blog pages and facebook pages. But more importantly is probably Intels whole corporation approach to social media which means that many of their employee’s blog about what they are doing and what they believe in . Their approach is open and transparent and builds on Intels corporate responsibility message.

This comes through in their social media policy:

“The choice to participate in social media is yours. If you do, please follow these guiding principles:
• Provide unique, individual perspectives on what’s going on at Intel and in the world.
• Post meaningful, respectful comments – in other words, no spam and no remarks that are off-topic or offensive.
• Reply to comments quickly, when a response is appropriate.”

On transparency Intel were early adopters of the policy to disclose :“If you are blogging about your work at Intel, use your real name, identify that you work for Intel, and be clear about your role. If you have a vested interest in something you are discussing, be the first to point it out.”

Our own ethical policy here at SociaLNK has always followed this open and transparent line.

Nike – who have not always been seen as the most ethical of companies have also been working hard to change this view. They have recently launched an internal portal called “We Portal” which is a platform which allows employees to post opportunities where NIKE employees can engage with the community and brainstorm about how the company can be more sustainable. “We’re not trying to dictate to them [employees] what they should be doing,” declared Adams. “We just want to give them a platform to elevate the work that they’re doing and amplify the impact that they’re creating.”

The key here is that corporate responsibility is no longer just donating money to worthy causes. There is a proactive element to how companies are engaging. The common aspect of these three examples they are all trying to utilise their employees in innovative ways to expand their reach. They are becoming listening organisations both internally and externally. By trusting employees and engaging with customers through them and working on ideas that both groups think are important they will be hard pressed not to build their brand reputation!

I spent a little time listening to a podcast by John Moore of WOMMA today. As he points out 90% of word of mouth happens in the physical world. So we must be careful not to simply focus on social media when considering our marketing efforts. Although he admits it is much easier to measure the effect of a social media campaign that does not mean that you should ignore offline WOM.

He suggests that there are two main strategies for encouraging Word of Mouth conversations. These are summarised in the mantra “Bake it, or Make it just don’t fake it”.

Baking It: A company that takes this strategy makes it a clear objective to make their company outstanding in some way. This can be through making a remarkable product (e.g. Apple’s ipod) or providing over the top customer service (Zappos). In fact it could even be to have terrible service. I remember as a student we used to frequent a hugely popular restaurant in London. They were famous for having extremely rude staff and very cheap food. As students we found this extremely funny and everybody had to go and experience it.

As John points out “Baking it follows the thinking that a company’s personality is its best form of advertising”

Making It: A different strategy which is just as valid is to make news in some way. As John puts it “Remarkable things get remarked about”. Good advertising does play a part here. 22% of Word of Mouth is generated by interesting advertising. This is where social media can play apart in creating interesting events which can be promoted online. Viral apps and videos can play a part here.

However you can think outside the box on this one. Policy decisions can have a big impact in generating Word of Mouth. John mentioned a company called Pizza Patrol in the US that recently started accepting Pesos in payment. This was a policy decision that generated huge quantities of publicity both positive and negative for the company. However the end result was an increase in sales. They took a risk and it paid off.

Faking It: John’s last point is that companies must work with integrity. If they don’t in today’s connected world they will be found out.

Here at SociaLNK we take Word of Mouth very seriously. We would be happy to talk to you about your own campaigns.

A recent decision by the Federal trade commission highlights some important issues for users of social media marketing (SMM). The decision was taken in the context of bloggers who write about genealogical software without revealing that they have received an endorsement. However it is likely that this case could quickly be generalized to other situations. 

Here at SociaLNK, we have always argued that it is critical for Social Media campaigns to maintain the highest ethical standards. Building trust with your customer base is central to maintaining your company’s reputation. This means fully revealing who you are and any endorsement at all times.

SociaLNK has a strong ethical policy that focuses on building on the positive conversations that appear organically from the community. We would argue that deception, infiltration, dishonesty or any other method of manipulating customers is wrong. The penalties are high for companies that engage in this sort of behaviour. Bad news spreads fast on the internet.

Rather than focusing on negative potentially damaging techniques we prefer to facilitate conversations and create interesting things to talk about. By creating communities and identifying stakeholders within that community good ideas will naturally emerge to promote your brand.