Easy (and not sleazy) Three of Social Media Ethics

Social media is fluid and dynamic. It’s always changing. Each day a new professional industry is logging into the online community to disseminate their messages/information. The natural consequence is that social media will evolve. With the influx of diversity and fresh perspectives growth is inevitable.

As social media marketers, we all want to keep the online community a trusted place for our consumers where we can share our honest brand messages. It’s up to us to make sure what we’re disseminating is ethical and in the best and serves the public good. To keep social media relative to consumers, we’ve got to clean up the filth.

There have been some “advances” through forced regulations by the FTC, which I’m actually inclined to disagree with. I believe that integrity and ethical practices should be up to the individual, so keep in mind that these are merely my suggestions and standards that I expect (and hope) to live up to.

Here are MY individual thoughts on the matter. My top three ways to avoid being a social media skeeze bag:

1. Keep Two-Way Communication Honest and Open

Opening an honest two-way dialog about our businesses, products, services and ourselves, we will better serve public interest and provide an opportunity for publics to make informed decisions.

What we hope to achieve:

Honest relationships with all of our audiences.

What this means for you:

No flogging. No astroturfing. If you’re paid by a company to talk about a product/service, why wouldn’t you tell your readers? It just seems like the right thing to do. No man behind the current tactics (be honest about who Tweets/Facebooks/Blogs).

And if you do say something wrong, own up to it.

2. Compete When Necessary, Collaborate When You Can

Competition is obviously important for a business environment to continue to thrive and remain relevant, but in the interest of continuing to grow the field, social media practitioners may work together to brainstorm ideas to strengthen the industry at large.

What we hope to achieve:

Provide unique ideas and allow the publics the widest possible choice when making decisions on products, brands, services and/or individuals.

Recognize the best ideas often conspire in competition.

What this means for you:

Don’t be a social media douche bag. While the social media community is very “me”cetric and “hey look at what I’m doing!”, I believe that it will stay vibrant from connecting (and not broadcasting) with one another. Building and sharing great ideas.

So this will mean more work for you, it will require you to be more proactive, but it will keep the industry flourish AND potentially give you a competitive advantage on your competitors.
3. Preserve Integrity Through Honest Disclosure of Information

Unveil all possible information to help publics trust they’re making informed decisions based on what they read online.

What we hope to achieve:

Guarantee that information provided online about (when provided by) a brand, product, service or individual is accurate.

Consult peers in the social media industry about best practices. And hold yourself up to those same standards.

What this means for you:

Be honest. That simple.

So those are my three, what are yours?