yaney


marketing

creative services

nailing post

results

about us
The transparent company
1/26/2012 7:59:35 AM
I had a high school history teacher named Mr. Rose. Every day Mr. Rose would give our class a quiz over the material we studied the day before. He would hand out a six-question quiz and leave the room for ten minutes. Now everyone knew that Mr. Rose left the answer key in the middle of his desk. What do you think happened? Someone went to the front of the class and read the answers out loud to the six questions as soon as the teacher left the classroom. Stupid old Mr. Rose would come back into class, have us exchange papers to grade and proceeded to read the answer key to us. This went on for several weeks. Right before report cards were to come out, Mr. Rose gave us the quiz like he always did before. He left the room, a student read the answer key out loud, Mr. Rose returned, sat at his desk and proceeded to read the key. Only something was different on this day. He pulled out another answer key-the correct answers-from his desk drawer. At the astonishment of all the cheaters, he announced that anyone who had gotten all six answers wrong would receive a failing grade on their report card. Crafty old Mr. Rose had taught us all a valuable lesson. No matter how foolproof you think your devious plans are, if you cheat, you will eventually be found out. You may think you are hiding behind the opaque wall that cannot be penetrated, but we all are living in the glass house when it comes to our actions.

The same is true about your company. Just how transparent does your company need to be? In the aftermath of the Enron/Arthur Andersen scandal in 2001, the federal government enacted the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) that made it illegal for the management of corporations to falsify their accounting records to overstate their financial positions. SOX was meant to keep corporations honest so investors would not be cheated. Beyond investors, since the days of the Enron scandal, the public has demanded more and more truth about business be laid upon the table. Social networking has only heightened this. How many corporations are now using Twitter to make press releases? The idea is to get the message as soon as it happens and to be completely accurate.

Ah, there are two flies in your soup. How much do I reveal about my company and is social networking the most reliable source for releasing corporate info? There was a day when you could over-sensationalize a piece of advertising and create a buzz around claims you could not back up. Those days are gone and for good reason. If you own a fast-food restaurant called "Buck’s Burgers” and you advertise you are selling 100% beef hamburgers, you cannot add tofu filler to your Big Buck Burger. First, there are laws against those types of claims without any backing. Second, the public is too informed and connected to continue buying your tofu burgers when you are found out. But how much is too much? Does the public need to know every little nuance about the way you grind your meat, where the beef comes from and how the cows were living prior to the slaughterhouse? Some companies have taken the stance that they need to be completely transparent with the customer about their supply chain and internal methods, such as manufacturing, processing, etc. They have made this a central part of their marketing message, for example:

"No child labor was used in the manufacturing of this product.”

"Made with 100% recycled material. No trees were harvested in the production of this product.”

"We only use organically grown produce from local farms.”

Here is my rule of thumb: if transparency sets you apart from your competition and you will not get in trouble with some special interest group, go ahead and show the world your inner workings. It adds credibility when you can convince your customers that you are operating in a responsible manner. However, be aware that you must remain consistent with this. Today’s public is quite unforgiving for any corporation who appears to be saying one thing and doing another. Hypocrisy does not sell well.

That brings us to social media. There is a fair amount of this transparent information that is spread through social networks. They offer an inexpensive way to get your marketing message in front of the marketplace in a hurry. However, in the past week, we have seen how things like tweets can become a source of inaccuracies spread by those seeking publicity, and those tweets make liars out of reliable news sources.1 There seems to be no rules for hyped-up-and-made-up information on social networks like there is in traditional advertising media. You can find yourself defending your company from a completely unfounded comment on a medium over which you have little control. If you are going to depend upon social networking to carry your marketing message, you must stay on top of what is being said and be prepared to move quickly to resolve any issues that arise – whether they are founded or not. And you have to be accurate in what you post. In your haste to get information into the hands of your social network followers, don’t shortcut the truth. The same rules that apply to the rest of your marketing efforts should apply to corporate social network posts as well.

It is predicted that most of the personal information on social media is made up.2 Don’t let that tempt you to shade the truth about your company on social media sites. The Mr. Roses of the world are still keeping watch and grading your corporation by what you say vs. what you do.

______________________________

1.     Rob Lowe Tweets End to Manning's Career: How Social Media Shapes Sports Stories by John Talty, International Business Times online, January 25, 2012

2. Do we tell the truth in social networks? Does it matter? By Matt Rhodes, Fresh Networks blog post, January 7, 2009
Photo by
ilkeryuksel
 

Comments

No comments have been posted yet.

 
Name
Email (will not be published)
Your Url

Older Posts

Groundhog Day, the Super Bowl and your marketing
Bicycles and marketing
Ben Franklin’s electric kite and a lot of marketing we believe
Making raisins from grapes – how hard are you making it to become your customer?
Stop-and-go marketing
 
Yaney Marketing is a solutions-based marketing and communications firm. We offer full-service marketing solutions, including
  • Strategic Plans
  • Marketing Execution
  • Customer Retention
  • Creative Services

 

 

Copyright © 2019 | Yaney Marketing, Inc.

  • Marketing
    • Catapultmymessage.com E-blast Tool
  • About Us
  • The Nailing Post Blog
  • Results
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us
Creative Services
  • Graphic Design
  • Social Media
  • Copy Writing & Editorial Services
  • Photography
  • Video & Multi-media
  • Web Development
  • Printed Marketing Materials
  • Advertising
  • Brand Development
  • Three-dimensional Displays, Signs & Wraps
Buttermilk Ridge Book Publishing