For any business that's thinking about delving into the world of social, there are a few key words that you'll likely see pop up again and again, namely "transparency, authenticity, and credibility." While these terms aren't new and their relevance is certainly not limited to the world of social, understanding how they apply and their true value is crucial in the success of your efforts. In this article, I'll discuss why each is important and then provide some examples of companies that are doing a good job employing them.
Transparency
Getting comfortable with the level of openness -- both good, and bad -- that the social web brings to bear can be a difficult thing for companies at first. For many, it goes against the grain of "controlling the message" and "maintaining control of the brand." Being transparent means owning up to mistakes publicly, responding to negative or unflattering comments, and, most importantly, providing a level of access to your culture that was previously not possible. Understand that, contrary to popular belief, this does not mean completely opening up your corporate kimono to the public but rather adding a layer of "human" to your brand that may not have previously existed.
Authenticity
This is probably the most important of the three concepts -- at least in this social marketer's mind, mainly because it speaks to the level of trust a company wishes to elicit from customers. Authenticity is about creating good content that speaks to lifestyle vs. product, or essentially putting customers first (and really meaning it). It's about standing behind guarantees and being sincere when apologizing. Authenticity is also about not using social channels to push your marketing, PR, or brand agenda down customers' throats but rather engaging them in real dialog -- good, bad, or indifferent.
Credibility
This is really a byproduct of demonstrating a level of transparency and authenticity and continually delivering on that promise. Most importantly, it governs to what degree you can engage with customers on the social web. For instance, diving head first into Twitter and holding a Twitter press conference a day after you've opened up your account probably isn't going to fly. The same goes for launching a corporate blog and creating only one or two posts in the beginning to tout a new product. This doesn't mean that a company has to wait six months to a year before deriving benefit from your social endeavors, but rather that it must establish a level of credibility before looking for the "quo" part of the quid pro quo.
Who is doing it right?
Let's start with Zappos, the online shoe store that recently hit $1 billion in annual sales (which was likely one of the things its acquirer, Amazon, found particularly attractive about the company). Transparency starts at the top with Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh. Not only is Tony the company's lead voice on Twitter -- his handle is @zappos -- but Tony regularly speaks about corporate culture, best practices, training, and every other aspect of the business on a daily basis. I've actually seen him hand out his company's 500 plus page training manual (which was written by the employees) at conferences, almost as if he's daring competitors to try and be more transparent and open then Zappos. While a majority of businesses will never want to achieve this level of transparency, Hsieh and Zappos have backed up what they do in the public domain, with great results.
Moving onto authenticity, Best Buy has embraced it in a way that few have ever attempted. Best Buy put itself on the social map with the launch of its Blue Shirt Nation community -- a place for Best Buy employees to come together to share ideas and best practices inside the corporate firewall. The success of this venture led to the company's chief marketing officer, Barry Judge, not only signing up for Twitter and blog accounts but publicly discussing things like new ad campaigns, company layoffs, and the overall evolution of marketing within the company's four walls. If you're wondering why I'm using Judge and Best Buy as an example of "authenticity" versus "transparency," it's because Judge has done a nice job at not opening the kimono too wide and thus exposing himself or the company to too much scrutiny. Judge has found that nice balance of establishing Best Buy as authentic and approachable without some of the risk that Hsieh has assumed with Zappos.
Last up, we have credibility. Certainly both Zappos and Best Buy have earned a sense of credibility in the field based on their behavior, but I'll provide a third example of a company that embodies that trait and that is JetBlue. While this "darling" of the airline industry has done almost everything right over the past several years, it had a fairly major snafu about three years back when it stranded thousands of customers for hours on the tarmac at dozens of airports across the U.S. The public outcry from the millions of JetBlue customers that had come to love and trust the airline was well documented on the news and in the press. When former JetBlue CEO David Neelman posted an apology on YouTube with the comments turned on, one of the reasons this tactic worked is because of JetBlue's credibility in the social space and that it was known as a company that cared about its customers. It took a while for customers to forgive JetBlue, but eventually they did. And Neelman's public apology was a major part of the healing process.
There are of course dozens of other examples of companies embracing transparency, authenticity, and credibility, but these three companies should provide some hope that the social web can be truly embraced with positive outcomes. And of course, not every company is going to be ready to fully commit to these concepts. But the more you can think about incorporating these into your social efforts, the greater chance of success you'll have down the road.
Aaron Strout is VP of marketing at Powered.
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