Social Media Optimization

A few days ago I was sitting and talking to my friend about how few social networking websites such as twitter and facebook have become a part of daily routine, in fact few of them said they have scheduled a break time to update status or most of them do it through the phone application, well looking at present can we say that privacy is disappearing and our online identities now being crowd-sourced.

Well according to David Finn(Chairman – Ruder Finn) – while individual use of social media varies from person to person, one thing is clear that there is a great deal of uncertainty about long term implications of the enormous amount of personal information that we’re sharing online.

Agreeing to the above it still goes for individuals who have yet to join a social network, their friends, families and colleagues have already “tagged” them in photos, videos and other online content. So does that means privacy no longer exists for any of u? What about companies, institutions and government agencies?

Now the question is are there any ethical guidelines in social media for keeping is safe while keeping out online identities open for both communication and commerce? Here are few which I think can lay foundation for the guidelines: Relevance, Responsibility, Transparency, Honesty, Respect, Privacy. These hold true for all who use social media be it organisation or an individual

Relevance: Make sure what you are about to post is relevant to the audience and where it’s being posted

Responsibility: Take ownership of all your online activities, the contents/updates posted and any missteps you’ve taken in the past.

Transparency:  Keep the statement clear and precise and show true identity of who you are and who you are representing.

Honesty:  While you are posting state only the facts which you are true.

Respect:  Respect for peers, audience and who all are communicating through media, or working with you or your adversaries is required.

Privacy: Treat all the intimate details of who you are representing and others as you would your own personal information.

As some points to remember:

-          Social media is real time, what you post is read instantly by your audience, be it your friends or competitors or clients.
-          Although social media is meant to engage and interact with internet users and at no point of time should companies/individual try and control their behaviour.

Even though companies ranging from facebook to twitter have learnt some important lessons about how to apply these ethical guidelines to their own social media pages. At Suntech Online Services we’re creating our own social media policies that will govern our online participation as individuals, as employees and as agents of our clients.

The question is- are you following your own set of ethical guidelines when it comes to engaging social Media? If you have some additional points to share – would love to hear your perspective.