Keep social media honest or consumers with boycott your brand

47% of consumers would be very likely to boycott a brand if they discovered it was operating unethically on social media, a YouGov survey commissioned by the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) revealed recently. Over 50% of consumers said they had no awareness of brands using the following unethical behaviours on social media:

• Faking a review on a social media site.

• Purchasing followers, fans or connections on social media.

• Paying or incentivising customers to share positive messages on social media without this being made clear to other users.

• Paying someone to promote a brand, product or service within social media without disclosing the payment.

• Falsifying user-generated content (i.e. blog posts, blog comments, testimonials, reviews etc.).

63%of consumers have difficulty in knowing whether brands are using questionable methods on social media.

However, perhaps what is most interesting is the comment from CIM Director of Strategy and Insights “Of particular concern are the wide differences in opinion [between consumers and marketers] as to the sorts of activities considered ethically questionable and misleading, as opposed to acceptable and of no detriment to users. This means it’s not just those businesses intentionally misleading consumers that are the problem – even the most well-meaning brands might be pursuing

activities on social media without realising they’re contributing to a concern amongst consumers.”

In an attempt to address potential future problems the CIM commissioned the research with YouGov and produced a 10 point checklist of key things to consider. See www.keepsocialhonest.com for more details.

 

Is transparency enough when our behaviour is being influenced/manipulated?

There are big ethical questions to be answered around the use of big date and behaviour experiments.
Following the revelation that the dating agency OKCupid had experimented with putting the "wrong" people together last month, the OKCupid founder has stated "If you use the Internet you're the subject of hundreds of experiments at any given time, on every site. That's how websites work".  And yet OK Cupid's users have complained about the lack of transparency and abuse of trust. They clearly don't quite see it in the same way.

So, if an Internet site/brand is transparent about the fact that they are using your data to increase their sales is this sufficient to satisfy consumers and keep/regain their trust?. Behavioural expert Steve Martin has stated that if brands add value and act transparently, consumers are less likely to feel deceived. However, this is not how everyone sees it. Following the Facebook manipulation of data earlier in the summer a US senator has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate.

The three key tenants of this website have been the 3 Ts, that transparency and fair treatment help to build trust and boost value. What is perhaps missing in the arguments above is the fair treatment aspect. Being transparent is not enough on its own, it is also a question of being fair, and fairness in this context has to be what consumers consider is fair; this means asking them and taking proper note of their feedback and concerns. Without this the already poor levels of trust and confidence in business is going to dip further and that's not in anyone's interest.

Corporate responsibility an important business benefit

A survey produced by the marketing recruiter EMR reveals the importance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to business, helping to further the business case for organisations to have a broad stakeholder approach to value creation.

The EMR MD stated "a positive CSR image can be an immensely powerful tool in attracting, retaining and empowering the best talent...a good CSR can be the difference between landing the best employee and narrowly missing out", as 70% of respondents cited that CSR was a factor in deciding on their latest employer.

However, for an organisation to be seen to be really credible, genuine and believable in their corporate responsibility there has to be more than just a "positive image" as mentioned above. CSR and broader stakeholder commitment needs to be more than lip service or "greenwashing" to obtain good PR. The EMR research founds that firms in the FTSE 100 have increased their funding to CSR initiatives by on average 11% which is good news.  However the figures still don't prove that corporate responsibility has gone beyond the CSR department and is now a routine part of organisational culture which is really what society and the wider environment is now demanding .