Kalum Wilson
Kalum Wilson

Helping Small and Medium Businesses Achieve Their Full Marketing Potential | Digital Marketing Expert

How to Remain Ethical In Today's Social Media Marketing Environment

The increasing popularity of social media marketing comes hand in hand with the increasing need for social media marketing ethics. Ethics is not a new concept in the digital world, it has been an evolving issue that began with cookies on websites and is now part of our everyday lives. The Institute of Business Ethics states that the problem arises when ‘personal information and opinions enter the public domain’. While information may be in the public domain, it doesn’t make it ethical to repurpose it as your own, but you may be able to use it to your advantage.

For example, brands use personal data all the time to target their advertising based on user interests. As long as their targeting complies with privacy policies outlined in the Data Protection Act 2018, this can be ethical. But how do you ensure all your social media marketing is ethical?  In this blog post, we’ll be sharing tips on how you can demonstrate social responsibility on social media.

Do…

Be Transparent With Your Audience

Transparency is one of the most important ways to maintain ethics in social media marketing. It should be something that every business strives to do.

According to Sprout Social, consumers singled out brands as the group with the greatest responsibility to be “transparent” on social media. Further research suggested that when brands have developed and demonstrated a strong sense of transparency with the customer, 9 in 10 people will be more likely to give them another chance after a bad experience. These statistics illustrate the importance of transparency and what it can do for your brand.

A couple of ways to ensure you’re transparent with your customers are to not withhold information and to not ignore customer messages. Remember to mention if you’re using your customer’s data. The more open you are with your customer base, the more trustworthy you’ll become.

Maintain Privacy

Privacy is becoming a bigger and bigger issue in the world of social media marketing ethics. As much as consumers like finding out recommendations and suggestions based on their data history, it is also important for them to know companies are data compliant. Research statistics found that 63% of consumers think companies aren’t honest about how they use their personal information, and nearly 48% have stopped purchasing from a brand because of privacy concerns.

Therefore, be sure that your website and social media is GDPR compliant and has an up-to-date privacy policy. Ensure you keep hold of any personal information securely and safely, to prevent data breaches or leaks. Also, avoid misusing any of your customer’s data information as this can be harmful to your reputation and create a sense of distrust.

Be Honest

Similar to transparency, being honest is a fundamental way to show that you take your social responsibility on social media seriously. Ensuring that you’re not spreading any lies or misinforming your customers of information is key to building a strong trustworthy relationship with your customers.

Before you publish any updates, make sure to fact-check and link the source if you can. It won’t take too long to verify the truth and will save a lot of time in case your customers pick this up and start spreading negative PR about your brand. Furthermore, try not to skew any statistics for your favour as this can also create brand image problems for your business. Avoid making promises that you can’t fulfil as finding yourself with an influx of angry customers isn’t a position any brand wants to be in. These little things can help to cultivate a culture of loyalty, openness and honesty between you and your consumers.

Don’t…

Use Clickbait On Social Media

Clickbait is a big no-no. Clickbait titles will not only cause your content to be reported by Facebook or other companies and thus lower the trustworthiness of your business, but will also turn most readers off your brand altogether. 

Therefore, we suggest you try to come up with suitable yet intriguing headlines which will remain true to your article but still encourage readers to read more.

Spam Your Followers

Everyone these days tends to switch off at the sight of spam, and for good reason too. Spam is irritating, to say the least, and often comes with an unwanted computer or malware virus. It clogs websites and social media pages with uninteresting, irrelevant content to the extent people will click unfollow to get it out of their feed. 

Therefore, try to avoid spamming your networks and followers. Even if you’re particularly excited about a new product release or service update, don’t post more than once a day about it!

If you’re looking to grow your social media presence in an ethical way, we just might be the social media agency that you’re looking for! Find out more about how we could help by booking a call with a member of our team.

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