Creative Concepts

While the world debates the meaning and the merits of Julian Assange, Wikileaks and our expected right to privacy, we at Creative Concepts can’t help but wonder… how interested would Assange be in sifting through your emails?

One of the basic tenets of social media is the call for transparency.  As the theory goes, the more openly you engage with your customers, the less ambiguity there is in your actions and the less “dirt” there is for others to dig up, should they choose to do so.  (For a deeper examination of the business approach to transparency, check out the book Tactical Transparency by our friends Shel Holtz and John C. Havens.)

But despite the public push toward openness, that doesn’t mean companies and brands don’t still have their secrets.  Tactical transparency doesn’t preclude tactical advantages. And, as Christopher Penn reminds us, some companies are built on secrets.

The question, therefore, is this:

Are your public actions drastically different from your private motives?

People tend to be most vocally concerned about privacy when they’re worried that the image they’ve publicly projected would be somehow damaged or destroyed “if certain information got out.”  In the case of military positions or diplomatic strategy, that concern can be understandable.  But in the case of brand management?

Perhaps the Assange affair is a timely opportunity for you to reconsider your brand’s public image and its private intentions, and to make sure that they’re harmoniously reconciled.

The world has enough secrets.  Does your company have too many to hide?

This is about more than lulling potential customers into a false state of security so you can take financial advantage of them later (although that’s obviously reprehensible).  This is about making sure that what you want and how you’re getting there isn’t in conflict with who you are.

And just who are we? Connect with us on Twitter or Facebook to learn more!

Photo by Lost Vegas.

We’re often asked to showcase our client, Bigelow Tea, as a social media case study.  Last Friday, I told the tale of Bigelow Tea’s blogging beginnings (and their present day story) at the Corporate Communication and Web 2.0 conference for The Conference Board.

Some stories that caught the audience’s attention included the infamous Don Imus incident (as we’ve written about here, and which was included in Shel Holz’s and John Havens’s book, Tactical Transparency), the “How a blog saved Fruit and Almond Tea from oblivion” incident (written about here), and my closing summary, which included these tips:

1. Make sure your brand is consistent online and off-line
2. Everything begins with great content.  Do your customers want to read your blog?
3. Reach out to your online fans and support their efforts on their turf.
4. Don’t forget to listen.
5. Evolve with your customers and try to stay ahead of your industry’s curve.
6. Saying “thank you” is like magic!

Check out our slideshow from the presentation:

A recent survey from eMarketer outlines both the perceived benefits and the primary concerns that business executives have about social media.  Chief among their reservations: information security and employee productivity.

Considering that 51% of the survey’s non-social media-using respondents said they “don’t know enough about” social media, their concerns about security and productivity are understandable.  From the outside, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and other tools might seem like a waste of time when compared to what executives already know works.  And without exposure to the way these tools are commonly used, it’s easy to presume that these mysterious new services can somehow derail your business if they’re used improperly.

To calm these fears, Ford’s head of social media, Scott Monty, often cites an anecdote related to him by Tactical Transparency author Shel Holtz*:

“A friend sent me a PDF of an article from a business journal in which a company expressed reservations about this new technology over which everyone seemed to be abuzz. They decided that they would restrict employees’ use of it, because of the fear of corporate secrets getting out, of insider information making its way to Wall Street, and of employees wasting their time on it. For that reason, they set up the hardware on a single station in the middle of everyone’s desks so that everyone could see how people were using it.

“That PDF was an article from a 1930s business journal and the technology was the telephone.”

Concerns about information security and lost productivity are ultimately corporate fears about control (or lack thereof).  But employees’ actions within social media channels are nothing new.  People have already been talking about their jobs for generations; all these new tools do is make that discussion easier to join, share and track.  The fear of losing control is unfounded.

Or, as Monty himself likes to add: If you don’t trust your employees enough to not damage your brand with their online actions… why did you hire them in the first place?

* Incidentally, Monty has spoken at our biennial Business Smart Tools conferences; the next BST event will take place in 2011.

Bigelow Tea, our client, has been featured in John C. Havens’ and Shel Holtz’s book Tactical Transparency.  It’s not out yet but the two authors spoke about it at the most recent New Media Expo in Las Vegas.  Attendees were more fired up than ever to get their clients or themselves into the social media mix.

Read more from the Trafcomm News blog by Donna Papacosta here.