Ethics and Legalities in Digital Marketing

Rules of the Game:

I believe that marketing of brand within social media is a positive step for the end users and public. However, we need a lot to do to make the vision perfect. Here are few recommendations to ensure your social media marketing remains ethical.

1. KYA – Know Your Audience:

Before embarking on any social marketing drive, make sure that you:

• Know about your audience, their preferences, interests and choices
• Have a complete demographic and psycho-graphic overview

This will help you refine your target audience and also facilitate in developing anti-spam mechanism. In addition, it will allow you to segment the audience and send over relevant messages that will drive engagement; the ultimate goal.

2. Stay Away from Biases:

Businesses and marketers need to stay away from (negative) political, religious, ethnic, or any cultural bias that could be termed as controversial. A slight mistake can lead to a big PR disaster and loss of your job (as marketer). We have seen that many top social media managers got fired for just one wrong tweet.

3. Never Compromise On Privacy:

Privacy is a very sensitive domain as it is top concern of the internet generation. If you are doing some marketing via social media, make sure you do not violate privacy rules. Some companies extract Facebook and LinkedIn data to build their email campaigns. This is a cutting-edge sword and requires attention to core concerns. Just a promise of not spamming might not be enough, you need to give unsubscribe option with every message you deliver. To read more about ethical email marketing.

4. Be Transparent:

If you are endorsing some product, idea or personality; you need to disclose why you are endorsing it. Mentioning your relationship with that particular product, non-profit entity, brand or political entity in your campaign, handle, or bio is essential.

5. Speak Truth:

If you have some interest or affiliation in something being discussed, you need to politely communicate your affiliation. It does not require that you explain your interests but tell as to why are you supporting a particular thing. Another important element here is to be true to yourself as well as the audience.

6. Think Before You Tweet:

Internet if flooded with unauthentic information pieces, which has made the marketer’s job more complicated. Therefore, always verify what you share before sending it out for prospects. Any factual error may lead to embarrassment and negative perception of the brand.

7. Imagine the Impact:

If you are sharing some information through your social channel which has been acquired from a third party source, give clear disclaimers to avoid suspicions of conflict of interest. Moreover; be very careful about your tweets and retweets. Public perception matters a lot. For instance, you might retweet something a politician has said in order to spread the news but some may view it as your support for that person. This can be very tricky for your brand.

Conclusion:

Finally, if you do the campaigns with a documented marketing strategy, it can save you from many troubles. Probably the best way to avoid any misconception is to map your content and have a content calendar. Moreover, a strict monitoring mechanism has to be installed to ensure compliance with the code of conduct.

 http://www.business2community.com/social-media/7-fundamental-ethics-social-media-marketing-01571504#adth2mSzRrheHEuT.99

Why does ethics come into it?

This is a grey area but marketers have a responsibility to act ethically.

Of course, there is a difference between illegal activity and unethical activity. Responsible brands are unlikely to be acting illegally as marketers should be familiar with privacy legislation. It is the unethical activities which have the potential to really damage brands.

Marketers know that a brand’s success is built on consumer trust and so delivering on its promise is key. If a brand fails to act ethically, whether this is done accidentally or deliberately, this trust is undermined.

In the past, we have seen brands acting unethically over their claims or trying to be something they are not, harming their brands  For example, the companies that provided the popular game app, Angry Birds, and the ‘Brightest Flashlight Free’ app have been using these apps to track users’ movements 24/7 and passing this information along to other companies. Acting as mini tracking devices, these apps collect information about where people travel throughout the day. As it is unreasonable to expect consumers to know they’re being spied upon, these app companies can be said to be acting unethically, and should their actions become public knowledge, it would undermine brand trust and dramatically reduce downloads.

But who owns the data?

Our every movement in the digital world leaves a trail that can be tracked. Various permission may well be given by consumers when first signing up to websites and apps, but these permissions are often without the consumer’s active knowledge as companies hide what data they are collating and for what purpose. For example, permission for companies to re-use family photos and videos that have been posted onto networks, such as Facebook, may well be buried in the T&C’s.

So all the while people are using a platform, data is being collected by the brand and being used to make a better product. Would consumers consider it morally acceptable if they found their personal details and images elsewhere on the web without having given explicit permission? Again, many consumers would see this as overstepping the ethical line.

The moral dilemma

A moral dilemma reigns. The Internet is meant to be free from control and a force for good where ideas and information can be freely exchanged . But who defines when something is ‘a force for good’ and when it’s okay for information to be ‘freely exchanged’? Large tech companies are dominating Internet activity and whilst generally perceived to be benign, they are increasingly deciding what Internet freedom should look like. Taking a closer look at the following examples shows that their actions are not always ethical.

• Google’s “don’t be evil” motto seems to mean that if Google does it, it’s for the common good. This is despite accusations of monopolistic practices in search and being criticised for spying on consumers to sell advertising. Google appears to want to define what is ‘good’.
• Facebook “helps you connect and share with the people in your life”. Another way of looking at this is that it is a giant marketing platform for collecting data on people’s lives and then selling this to advertisers. 
• Unethical sites have tapped into Facebook to help them disseminate ‘fake news.’ This ‘news’ is so realistic, and targeted at people who have the propensity to believe it, that there are concerns it may have influenced the way people voted in the U.S election. 
• Twitter claims to help you to “get in-the-moment updates on the things that interest you” and yet they aren’t transparent about how users’ data is sold on to advertisers.

If the world’s largest tech companies are not transparent in their marketing activities this highlights the scale of the moral dilemma today’s marketers must navigate.

Navigating the moral tightrope

It’s an exciting time to use digital tools as they are changing fast, but by ignoring the ethical dimension  marketers are in danger of undermining brand trust. On the horizon, we can see  which will measure peoples’ emotional response to ads through facial recognition. To do this, consumers must grant the platform access to their webcams, adding another dimension to the moral maze.

The arrival of big data means that there will be even more data available requiring more powerful tools. So, now’s the time for marketers to obtain clarity around what is and isn’t ethical. There are currently few guidelines around the ‘rights and wrongs’ in the world of digital marketing. Perhaps it’s time for companies to introduce an ethical marketing handbook, making it clear what is and isn’t acceptable in the online world? By considering the brand damage that could be done by acting unethically, this should be incentive enough for marketers to review their own and their companies’ moral compasses!