How Sustainable Is Transparency?
By: Teresa Basich
At Radian6 we live and breathe social media. Online interaction and sharing are a part of our daily lives. We share stuff related to our hobbies and personal passions, but it’s part of our role here to share as much, if not more, business-related content and connect with folks who are interested in social media monitoring and engagement and/or our platform.
When it comes to online engagement, we have loose guidelines and policies in place that we follow while we’re “on duty”, but since the social web never turns off, those guiding principles follow us even when the work day is done. All this is to say that, in our world, our social media engagement is significantly impacted and driven by our work.
The thing to recognize here is that we’ve consciously chosen this path early in the game. But, as time goes on and social media becomes deeply engrained in more corporate cultures, will the integration of these highly open communication channels take the fun out of it all, so to speak? Will we see a forced openness from widespread corporate social media adoption that (ironically) pushes us to be more private with our lives and controlled with our outreach?
If you’ve heard Radian6′s CEO Marcel Lebrun speak, you know that he often likens social media to email. When email first appeared on the scene the business world was in an uproar over how to integrate it into their processes and what it would do to business communication. Obviously, we can now confidently say that email is so deeply rooted in business communication that many of us wouldn’t know how to work without it. As a company, we strongly believe that social media will eventually become so much a part of business communication and collaboration that, much like email, we won’t know how to work without it.
The inherent difference between email and social media, though, is that email is relatively private by default. Okay, so maybe we accidentally hit the “Reply All” button once in awhile, which never feels good, but the very home email lives in is secure, whereas social is significantly open. With email, you can’t passively observe what your friends and acquaintances are doing this weekend; you have to actively be invited into that conversation.
Right now, for most of us, all these factors play into how we communicate on fairly separate personal and business levels. But as more of us are asked to engage in social media on behalf of our companies, or, at the very least, be aware that we’re representatives of the businesses we work for, these factors will play into how we communicate on every level, and the lines between personal social media engagement and professional social media engagement will blur.
This begs the question: Will we start to pull back as we’re asked to speak more? And if so, what will that mean for our quest for transparency? How will that impact the work we’re doing to better reach our customers and garner their attention? What say you?
Tags: business communication, Communication, social media engagement, the future of social media
I'm as guilty of what Kary brings up as anyone. Finding myself partaking in what I've called as the world's largest chat room. I have to shift back to a "professional" side occasionally as I can get a little carried away with the personal side of things. I'm very aware of what I share and who I share it with. So I have the transparency covered, so to speak.
But I think in today's economy, businesses that are doing well have discovered that you have to pull back that curtain every once in a while and let someone get a peek inside. How sustainable is transparency? I think it's expected nowadays and will be a way to do business from this point forward.
I totally agree that curtain has to be pulled back, but what I wonder is, when enough folks within these businesses are asked to interact on behalf of the company, is engagement as a whole going to move backward in the name of privacy? Like Craig said below, are we going to keep trying to maintain the separation between personal and professional communication? Is that even going to be possible? And how is that going to impact our openness about products we love and brands we're attached to? Will that slide backward, too?
Lots of questions, for sure. Thanks for the comment, Stacey!
I'm as guilty of what Kary brings up as anyone. Finding myself partaking in what I've called as the world's largest chat room. I have to shift back to a "professional" side occasionally as I can get a little carried away with the personal side of things. I'm very aware of what I share and who I share it with. So I have the transparency covered, so to speak.
But I think in today's economy, businesses that are doing well have discovered that you have to pull back that curtain every once in a while and let someone get a peek inside. How sustainable is transparency? I think it's expected nowadays and will be a way to do business from this point forward.
I totally agree that curtain has to be pulled back, but what I wonder is, when enough folks within these businesses are asked to interact on behalf of the company, is engagement as a whole going to move backward in the name of privacy? Like Craig said below, are we going to keep trying to maintain the separation between personal and professional communication? Is that even going to be possible? And how is that going to impact our openness about products we love and brands we're attached to? Will that slide backward, too?
Lots of questions, for sure. Thanks for the comment, Stacey!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Miriam Salpeter and Media Rockets, Teresa Basich. Teresa Basich said: On the @Radian6 blog today, I wax a bit philosophical on the sustainability of transparency: http://bit.ly/aNl8Dm [...]
And I think within that balance there's a more specific balance that we have to figure out between engaging in personal conversation and talking business with professional contacts to maintain a healthy relationship. We all get to know certain clients, vendors, and folks within business networks on deeper levels, and that non-work conversation is important. But, since those relationships are accessible at pretty much anytime in social media, where do we draw those lines?
I've still got lots of questions, too. Thank you for the comment, Kary!
And I think within that balance there's a more specific balance that we have to figure out between engaging in personal conversation and talking business with professional contacts to maintain a healthy relationship. We all get to know certain clients, vendors, and folks within business networks on deeper levels, and that non-work conversation is important. But, since those relationships are accessible at pretty much anytime in social media, where do we draw those lines?
I've still got lots of questions, too. Thank you for the comment, Kary!
Teresa, excellent questions.
I don't really believe there is a line anymore (speaking to the above posts). It's almost as though once your social the line between public and private content is gone. We see the examples in the news almost daily (employees being let go as a result of comments online).
Is it possible to be 100% transparent all the time? I don’t believe so. However I do believe that as a society we will never pull back enough to make that line between personal and professional be definite again. We live in a world of viral communication. For better or for worse it’s out there.
This conversation always gets me, how do we adapt?
Teresa, excellent questions.
I don't really believe there is a line anymore (speaking to the above posts). It's almost as though once your social the line between public and private content is gone. We see the examples in the news almost daily (employees being let go as a result of comments online).
Is it possible to be 100% transparent all the time? I don’t believe so. However I do believe that as a society we will never pull back enough to make that line between personal and professional be definite again. We live in a world of viral communication. For better or for worse it’s out there.
This conversation always gets me, how do we adapt?
I couldn't agree more. I've watched my social media communication (de?)evolve over the last few years as the lines between professional and personal accounts have blurred. Great post and excellent discussion.
Thank you!
Sarah
I couldn't agree more. I've watched my social media communication (de?)evolve over the last few years as the lines between professional and personal accounts have blurred. Great post and excellent discussion.
Thank you!
Sarah