Video of Ethics

In Andy’s video, he talks about three guides for safe social media outreach:

1. Require disclosure and truthfulness. It means that disclosure needs to be real, clear and honest. I totally agree with Andy. We need to clearly identify who you are when you make a comment on social media such as Facbook, Twitter, blog or other customer review sections. If you are an employee you should say I am an employee of what company and this is my opinion. And, you should be honest about every single opinion or comment that you make. For companies, need to be honest to their customers. They cannot pay people for making positive reviews. For customers and employee, need to be honest about their opinion based on the experience. Do not lie or make fake comments.
2. Monitor the conversation and correct misstatements. Companies have responsibility to every single comment. Companies have to respond their customers’ comments or opinions. They need to give customers feedback to make change in order to let consumers know that companies care about them and build a strong and good relationship with them. Of course, it won’t be all positive comments so companies have to respond their customers, look deeply about problems and solve them. It will hurt companies’ brand if they do not do anything about comments or reviews. Therefore, companies need to stand out there, monitor the conversation and correct misstatements.
3. Create social media policies and training programs. Training programs are important. Companies need to train their people and let them know what is right and what is wrong because sometime they just want to help but do not know they are doing the wrong thing. Once customers or people find out, it will hurt company’s brand and reputation. In the video, it gives an example about junior executives ask all their friends to come and support the company he/she works with through social media. I never thought about this is unethical, and I just realize that I have done this before. Some of my friends asked me to become “a fan” of their company on Facebook because they want to get lots of fan and to make that feel like there is lots of people support the company. Therefore, I helped my friends and become “a fan” of the company which I have no idea about it. I just realize that this is wrong thing to do. I believe that many of people have same experience as me.

Social media is an important opportunity for companies to expend and widespread their brand, product or service. However, companies need to clearly know how to use it in correctly ways. To stay safe, they have to remember never pay for fake positive comments, be honest, telling the truth, provide training programs, be careful about who you hire and consider the program of agency.

Regards

Tara