Are you prepared to be exposed?

Recently I was working with a large supermarket brand when one of the participants talked about how social media had changed the landscape of branding. The comment was you have to be prepared to be exposed. What this comment meant, I think, was that extensive due diligence can be undertaken very easily now by your customers or clients via social media to look behind your company. It is very simple for customers or clients to get online and start digging deep into your true DNA, your beliefs, the integrity of your management , staff and your operations, how you spend or allocate money, and who you associate with.

Many companies and charities talk about being totally transparent yet keep valuable information from their customers. They’ll share what they want to share but hold back information that could incriminate, damage or shed an unhealthy light on their operation. They talk about transparency, but when it comes down to it, there is a lot they would hate to be shared. The digital world is making it more and more critical for us to understand that our customers can get a pretty good snapshot of what's behind our brand, and then quite easily share it.

Brands need to appreciate that in this day and age, if you don’t give me a reason to believe everything you’re saying is true, I’ll go looking for it. True authenticity in your brand, your people and the contribution you make to society comes from being honest, upfront and dealing with complete integrity.

The US Marines say that integrity is doing the right thing.…even when no-one is looking! Powerful lesson.