Unfortunately, this is the way how the world is. Fake personalities, fake reviews and everything for the money. It reminds me a friend with whom I am working in the manufacture business. He is the Quality Engineer of a large powerful company: Tellabs, and I work for a small quality assurance company that provides services to Tellabs. Our job is going to the manufacture plant and check whether they are doing their job according to Tellabs standards. My friend is the one who tells me what good is and wrong of the process. So recently he changed his mind at the point that the manufacture plan is doing things by their rules. And this means sending defective units even when they know these units are wrong.

What happened there? I recently discovered my friend got a new house from one of the managers of the manufacture plant. I know my friend was bribed by the manufacture plant so they pass all defective material straight to sells. Is this ethic? Who are the affected ones of this? Us!!! Tellabs is the supplier of telecommunications systems for all mayor telephone companies!!

So this happens at any level but at least in an online business this kind of things are masked.

Curious, do you think any less of the President for not writing his own speeches? If not, why not?

IMHO, it's all about intent and sincerity. If the intent is to manipulate, sure... that sucks. But if the intent is to share news and information with you that the company wants to get out but doesn't have the resources or talent... then why not have someone else do it for you?

Not everyone is good at social media, or even social interaction. Without a professional to help guide them or even represent them, a company could do more damage than good.

Doug

Talina,
Interesting conversation. I am kind of on the fence about it. I think you can tell when a company has their social media run by another company as it looses some of its personality. That being said I am not sure I am doing it 100% right either and looking at how my business is doing obviously I am not doing something completely right but I am doing something I can believe in which to me has always been my primary focus. I am a "fan" (or I guess "like" nowdays) companies that obviously are either really bad at being personal or have someone else doing it and I am a fan of companies that are obviously being done by the owners. I have seen things like laundry detergent get an amazing amount of buzz and growth simply because of a great personal social media that includes both giveaways but also a company you feel like you know the owner. I think people in our all too busy society are really looking for connection not just more billboards in your face but as a business owner it is hard to find that balance. I am not certain that it is unethical but it doesn't seem like the best business practice if you want to build your customer base based on personalization (which I think is something the business world needs). The constant giveaways work b/c people are looking for a freebie but I don't know that it builds the long term loyalty that helps a business survive during hard times. I also see the difficulty for smallish businesses that already have more workload than they can handle but know they will be trounced if they don't do the social media thing so it can go both ways. I think the bottom line is that as consumers we need to remember how much our money is worth and that it is a vote for what you believe is important (whatever that may be) and you should purchase accordingly.

Talina,
Thank you for this blog post. It seems you were in my head as you were typing it. While I understand that Social Media is supposedly "where it's at" right now, I will never consider hiring someone to do my Social Media page. No one knows my business as I do...and no one person or company can represent it like I want it represented. You want me to tell you what to put out there? How about I just do us both a favor and DO IT MYSELF. I have a very successful business and run a successful (soon to be non-profit) organization as well. People have just found a way to make money from this and I have been bullied by some that offer it like I'm going to fail if I don't hire them, which is absurd.

It drives me nuts when their social media is OBVIOUSLY hired out....when three of four organizations are having the same "competition." My bottom line - I want you as a fan, I want you to genuinely like my company - and beg of you not to become a "fan" or "like me" because I'm giving away tickets to Holiday world. On my personal page, I actually know my "friends", I don't let just anyone see all of that information! And on my business pages - I don't want to bombard you with my information if you don't truly WANT IT and you wanted tickets to Holiday World. Are you going to do business with me because I DRIVE YOU INSANE ON FACEBOOK? Probably not. So like me or not, like my companies or not. I'm genuine and they are too.

Authentically yours,
Mandy

Thank you Pam :) I agree with you fully and anytime you want to meet for coffee I'd love to sit down and have a calm, cool, deep PR discussion on it...like I told Andy Herbertz after the meeting when he was giving me some pointers on presenting etc. I don't pretend to know everything and love to talk with anyone with more experience in PR than me so I can learn from his, yours or anyone's experiences in the field.

Thank you so much for continuing this discussion.
I have to say that this weeks meeting was my first and I really went to try to understand more about this "managed facebook" for businesses. I really didn't think anyone was rude, I think they really wanted to understand. If you go to an open forum and speak about your business you should know that there will be questions.
No matter how you feel abou this or how Social Life conducts business this is a discussion that we need to have. Social Media is so new and the rules for most things are being written as we go along. We need to be able to learn from each other and have the difficult discussion.
I couldn't help but think about the beginnings of PR as a profession so long ago, and it seems to me it must have been a lot like this. As a community we need to come together and maybe on some topics we just agree to disagree. I am old enough to remember when subliminal advertising was thought to be "OK" and as long as you flashed those messaged inbedded in comercials fast enough it was "ok."
Somehow we will figure out this too, but only if we are able to have discussions and learn from each other.

Like I've said before I'm not trying to change anyone's opinions, I'm trying to explain our company a little better. I don't need to hijack anything for self promotion and I don't feel what I said was poking fun at anyone nor was it intended to do that. I am the one trying to make nice and get along with other professionals in this business and take the higher road vs. going the other way.

It was a sincere letter and I wouldn't hit submit if I wanted it deleted :) We've got 4 new clients from the talk all who would disagree with things being heated because we have something to hide, there were several professionals at the club for the first time who thought the exact opposite and thought we were more than justified standing up for our business...one email I received and forwarded to Tim from a first time attendee..."I thought it was rude and one of the most ungracious club activities we have ever been to. We were embarrassed for the club."

Okay we've said our peace, tried to mend and be nice :) Back to another 16 hour day.

Okay, this is gonna come off a bitchy but here it goes... It's my site so I can bitch if I please.

First off, thanks for hijacking the comment thread and turning it in to self promotion. You know if you actually listened to others instead of immediately being on the defensive you would have reached me better.

I am one of the people your business tries to appeal to you know. I am not a social media professional or a marketing professional, just a consumer that was put off by the way things were presented. Like I tweeted at you, it is all in the approach of things.

Additionally, you just poked fun at two people in your comment that didn't agree with (or understand) what you presented and now you are pointing fingers at others for being petty? Perhaps the "harsh feelings" you describe toward your company are a result of this approach.

Luckily for you I don't just remove the posts from my site that I don't agree with (see me poking fun at you, are you having harsh feelings now?).

You know this was only the 2nd SMCEVV event I've attended. I am fairly new to the Evansville scene. I thought the point of the meetings was for learning and networking and not to have an agenda pushed down your throat, this is how your talk made me feel.

When the "heated" Q & A started I pretty much came to my conclusions about the ethical stuff because in addition to your defensiveness you were being rude to those that brought up concerns. It seemed like you had something to defend and hide.

I don't know the specifics of what it is you do or do not do. I appreciate you trying to enlighten us on it all but I do not appreciate the bullying and disrespect displayed here and also in the meeting.

It is truly a shame because what was supposed to be a give and take and a learning experience has only resulted in apparent burning of bridges and bad impressions.

Fortunately for me I am not representing a business so I can be as harsh as I want in sharing my opinions. For you it reflects badly on your prized business and just results in more bad impressions... and it is something you can't delete or take back. (Sorry couldn't resist the one last chance to poke fun).

Hey all. Like Tim we appreciate your input however let me try to explain a little better. Most business owners, like the one the other night, don't have time to be on social media and don't want to take the time to learn it. I think what everyone is missing on this ethics debate is we WORK for the business. We don't make up responses. We don't trick any of the fans. We are employees of the businesses we represent. Like I said the other night, my team probably knows more about each business and each business owner than the workers they have in their respected businesses.

Today I spoke with 7 local business owners, emailed back and forth with another 3 and texted another 1. From ideas for campaigns to specials and other stuff. I know what they make on products, I know their inventory, I know what sales are coming up. I know the demographics of each business, I know what percentage of retail and commercial business they get, I know how many people come through the door on what days...when I say we become the business we literally become the business. A lot of people don't realize how involved the business owners actually are. I think the perception was we do it all and the business owner has no idea what's going on and that's just 100% false.

When any fan of any of the businesses we represent posts a comment we are in touch with that business owner. Each month we meet or discuss (most of the time it's weekly) ideas, thoughts, offers and more. In a sense we are doing nothing different than what an ad agency does but it's only for social media. In fact we have done work for 5 ad agencies nationwide as well as Fortune Top 100 companies (all who know the ins and outs of our business model and pretty much are floored by the complexity of it all...that's why my employees have to sign a very detailed and drawn out confidentiality agreement before I'll even consider putting them on the team)

The beauty of it all is the fans have the final say. If they don't like a page or agree with it they can leave or block the comments. I think if you all would take a few seconds and browse some of the pages you'll see very rarely are there comments directed toward a business owner. It's mostly general information about the business. Just tonight in the last hour I've been on the phone with 2 business owners about comments on their page

** Hold on my son is crying (bad dream I guess :)

We don't ignore problems. We handle them. Complaints are NEVER swept under the rug. We resolve and handle all complaints directly with the business owner, not just on Facebook but all over the place. Please try to remember I'm not some young kid who just got off the advertising bus. I was an Ad Club of Evansville Scholarship Winner, I have won 5 national awards and a gazillion other awards for AT&T. The only reason I'm in Evansville isn't the fact that I couldn't get a job at an agency in a big city, it's the fact I have two of the best kids ever - who are my world - and I'd rather work at Mickey D's vs. leaving them for a great job in a cool city period.

I think a lot of the issues are people don't quite understand what, how or really anything about our company and thus the rumors fly and what people don't understand they tend to create in their heads or just decide it's some kind of unethical thing that we do. I think some people see the popularity of our company and our clients and there is a lot of jealousy and harsh feelings because of it. The reason we list our clients is for one reason only - we want people to use their services and products. We want to promote them to death. When people think of any of the services or products our clients have we want them to be top of mind hands down. I don't work 16 hour days because I think my clients suck :) I'm kidding Pam.

The pages, social media campaigns, graphics, interaction and more are a beautiful thing me and my staff have worked very hard to achieve. The fact that we've had several discussions from several companies from here all the way to New York City about purchasing our business (and trust me these are legit companies with names you'd recognize) and the fact that in the last month we've expanded into two other markets and been more successful there than we were here in the same time frame should show people what we do and our view/approach to social media is a game changer.

Just because it's not what you are used to seeing or reading about doesn't make it unethical. Just because we don't fit the 'norm' of what people think a business should look like (bare feet and tshirts :) doesn't mean that we aren't legit. Like Tim said, we are normal people like you, and to be honest reading all those tweets WHILE we were trying to show people an opportunity on how to improve their business in the eyes of normal, non social media, average joes that are on FB - it was just a shock. I could only sit there and think that other than being wildly successful in this market why would people I've never met, never said one bad word about speak so harshly. While we could easily be just as harsh on a MUCH LARGER platform of ears we tend to just let people talk and we'll just focus on the bigger picture - our clients.

For the record, we don't down other medias. We don't down our competitors. We don't tell the businesses we represent what, how, who or where to spend their ad dollars...in fact, if asked we tell them a media mix of all medias is still necessary if affordable. In fact during the speech I plugged Dana twice - while she's being petty on Twitter. In fact we advertise ourselves on radio and tv at the current time.

Hopefully this can clear the air to a lot of people about us. We are passionate about our business and want to be the best we can at what we do just like everyone else on here, rather than hate us because of our views and misconceptions I would think some people could see a very good opportunity to create a business relationship with us that would propel them from a local level and mindset into a national and beyond level and mindset.

Hope everyone is well,
Brian Bennett

By the way, I really do appreciate your perspective and the opportunity to share another side. It always helps me clarify my own thoughts on the matter.

Social media does need to work at a personal level, I cannot imagine it working any other way. I had the opportunity to spend time with last night's speaker and his team, and it turns out that they're just like you and me.

They are real people, they visit the same restaurants, have kids at home, are a part of the community that they work in. They work part time for the restaurant you are following on Facebook, and they have fun because they believe in the businesses they represent and they love what they're doing. It's really a perfect job for someone who wants to work from home, who is upbeat and likes to spend their time on Facebook.

And you might want to give that restaurant a break. You have been there, it's all kitchen and dining room. Where would they put someone on staff to handle their social media? It would have to be done from somewhere else, or they would have to be lucky enough to have an employee like my cousin who loves her job so much, volunteered to be their brand ambassador for no charge. Since they don't have the space or the staff, they might as well hire someone outside to handle it for them.

Tim,

Great comment! It does clear up the confusion for me and I get the idea of it all. I guess as an owner of a facebook fan page I choose to handle my social media differently and I perceive the role of social media to be more of a personal, one-on-one thing as opposed to a traffic driving source for businesses.

Social media can drive traffic for businesses, but I've always felt that for it to work most effectivly it needs to be on a more personal level than what was presented. Otherwise it's not much different than every other business trying to gain customers.

I think there is some understandable confusion and discomfort about the issue of business presence on Facebook. Facebook succeeded by giving us all a way to connect and share with our friends and family in a network that we controlled.

But Facebook saw an opportunity to be more profitable by getting businesses involved, too. They want to have the same success with businesses and brands that they have with people, and that is why they created Fan Pages. As an individual, you are not supposed to have a fan page, and you are not supposed to set up a personal page for your business.

If you dig deeper, you find that if you administer a fan page, you cannot post on that page as yourself, you can only post as the business or brand. This creates the impression that whomever is posting is the person you think it is behind the logo. We see this on the Social Media Club of Evansville fan page, where any of the 6 administrators can post something and the rest of us do not know who it was.

This makes things very complicated for many business owners. You must choose who can post to your Fan Page as the company. If you assign an employee, you have the issue of what happens when the employee leaves. A business has to choose people they trust, who understand social media, and who will conduct things in a predictable and consistent manner. This is why some businesses specialize in providing social media training for employees and others provide social media services for those companies who simply want to get it done without adding to their employee job descriptions.

I don't know if I have softened your discomfort at all with this insight, but perhaps I have at least reduced some of the confusion. The bottom line is that Facebook wants businesses to be on Facebook, and they expect multiple people to be involved in representing that brand. Businesses have to choose whether to train their own people or hire experts, and they make that decision based on their strengths and insights.

I think it's an ethical concern because they are utilizing free space meant for non-commercial activities. It's spam.

There's a big difference between a company buying ad space on Facebook and creating a free page there so I think the ethical concern goes beyond whether it's the owner, someone directly working for the business, or a PR firm.

In fact, when the purpose of the page is solely to promote the business, I don't think it makes any difference who does the posting - it's still PR. And it's a big deal to me. I've got a few relatives that are using Facebook to promote some home-based businesses and I find them just as annoying.

It's sleazy advertising and it's been around ever since I can remember. You've seen ads in magazines or newspapers that are formatted to look like regular articles with a tiny little note somewhere that it's advertising? What you're talking about is worse because you don't even get that much formal notice.

I don't know if you were aware of it, but this same ethical argument caused a huge uproar recently at ScienceBlogs and resulted in a substantial number of their bloggers leaving.

I share your concerns, but I can tell you the clients that I work with all post their own entries on Facebook or they have an employee that is actually involved in their business take care of posts.
I believe that Social Media is an opportunity to have a conversation with your customers and those interested in your company. With all the deception already out there I would never tell a client to have someone else post things in their name.
While most of us do not expect to have the owners of every company talk to us on facebook, I do believe that if you go to a company facebook page and take the time to "like" that page and even post something, the very least they can do is to have some one from that company respond to you.
I was very upset to hear a business owner at that meeting tell me he didn't have time to deal with any of this. Hmmmm he sure likes it when I go to his restaurant and take the time to spend my money. This spoke volumes to me about how he feels about his customers.
I don't know if I am more sad or angry about all of this.
I do stand by my concerns of how ethical all of this has become. But there is the rub... we all have our own moral compass that tells us what is ethical and what is not.
I think mine might set a little different than most.