"A recent blog post in Hong Kong lambasted a new restaurant in Central, but did not state that the author was the marketing manager for the restaurant next door to the one he was slamming. Disclosure, in this case, is your friend."
Source: Angie Wong, Food & Lifestyle Editor, Hong Kong
While living in the digital era, we seem to have forgotten to keep ourselves low profile. The world of digital taught us to be loud; We strive to be heard because for once, we have a chance to speak up boundlessly and we all believe that our voice matters. The ever-changing trend has invented Web 2.0- from IRC and ICQ to blogging, social networking, photo-sharing, podcasting, youtube and microblogging..... The list could just go on and on, and before we know it, a new trend will magically appear with a snap of a finger.
In the early years, these media was meant for people to keep in touch with friends and to digitalize their daily activities and personal lives. It comes in handy as one does not need to be involved in any heavy programming, and yet he/she could enjoy the ownership of a personal website. Then marketers see the opportunity and they started to engage with their customers via a two-way communication online.
But no one is there to tell us that we are drifting away from our privacy and identity.
This issue is especially serious when marketers started to employ social media in their marketing plans. As a marketer, we act professionally on one hand but on the other hand, we have a different profile altogether. If we choose to criticise about the competitor(s), do we have a valid reason for saying it or is it just based on a personal view? At what position are we suppose to talk about our competitor(s)? Being a human being, we show our likes and dislikes; We want to vent our frustrations on our personal space, but if we are not careful enough, it will indirectly influence our professional image.
Picture the scenarios below, what are your take backs?
1) Brand A decided to purchase a competitor's domain names and keywords, hoping that it would steal the crowd from its competitor.
Question is, for all the dollars spent on this irrelevant purchase, do you get an effective reach? Do you want to take such a risk, for the exchange of your company's credibility? Check out these links for Google's trademark policy.
2) You join the Social Media team of a company.
As a general rule set by the company (to avoid having your personal opinions online), you are required to delete your blog and remain neutral on Facebook. Are you willing to accept the rules and hide your online presence for the benefit of the company?
3) You found cam-whoring photos of your school teacher/ professor/ consultant/ client on Facebook.
Now, does it tell you more about this person? Or does it tarnish the relationship between you both? I once have a teacher who teaches professionally in class; but behind the scene, she enjoys doing sexy photoshoot and modelling... I mean, I still see her as an inspiration, just, what would the guys think? ;)
Till today, the difference between what is private and public work is still unclear. There's no code of ethics to follow, except those that are drafted by the companies using the tools. The challenge here is to remain grown up and professional- that's probably the best way to move forward.
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