We see right through you

The Importance of Transparency in Social Media

I am currently taking a class on Social Media Marketing and the importance of transparency came up. Why is it important for an organization to be transparent in social media?

Transparency is about building trust and showing your agenda to the people in which you are communicating with.

As a consumer, this really got me thinking.  How do I know who is being transparent and who is hiding something from me?

I was interested in trying out the Insanity workout DVD's that you have probably seen on late night infomercials.  Do you know the ones I'm talking about?  They come on when you're sitting on the couch in the dark, halfway through a bag of chips... or is that just me?

 

 

The price of these DVD's are expensive as far as I'm concerned and I wanted to do some research to weigh the pros and cons to see if this workout was for me.  As I read numerous blogs and reviews, I became further confused.  Half of the positive reviews came from people designating themselves as a "Team Beachbody Coach" and to order directly off their site.

 

As I dug into it, Team Beachbody offers a program, in which you become a coach and share the Team Beachbody story, in return they will offer that coach discounts and incentives.

 

Were their reviews of the Insanity workout honest? Or just manufactured so that I would like what I read and buy from them?

 

 

In my opinion, if I have uncertainty, then this person or company is not being transparent enough.  If they had told me "Hey, I believe in this product, it changed my life and if you would be so kind to order from me I get 25% off my next DVD bundle.."  Sure, I would order from them. No harm in helping someone else out. This wasn't the case in my online search.  So, I ordered directly from the site.

 

We, as consumers do not want to feel like we are being lied to or used in any way, and why should we have to?

 

Many companies get themselves into trouble by not being transparent enough. Do you remember what happened with Lululemon and their sheer luon pants?  They announced that they were recalling certain styles of their black luon pants because they were too sheer.  They initially encouraged consumers who may have purchased these pants to come into their stores and bend over in front of an associate to determine if the pants were in fact, too transparent.

 

 

 

I have more pairs of Lululemon pants than my credit card bill and I would like to admit, so this announcement definitely made me nervous.  Why would they not tell me what style was affected? I went home that day, tried each pair on and bent over in front of a mirror just to make sure.  Thanks Lulu, for wasting my time.

 

The recall landed them in some hot water with a lot of consumers. Not necessarily because it happened, but how it was handled.

 

I came upon an interesting blog from Sprout Content that gets a little deeper into the story:

 

Is Lululemon being sheer enough?

 

Bottom line is that if Lululemon were more transparent and forthcoming about what was going on, they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble.  Tell us the styles that were affected, apologize and offer us a quick and convenient way of reimbursement, that's all we were asking for!  We probably would have given them kudos for being upfront about it.

 

I suppose, they could've gone the other way and have been too transparent.  However, I don't think that the following tactics would have helped their brand image:

 

Dear Consumer,

It seems as though we may have let a few batches of our popular luon pants get through to retail without proper quality assurance.  We are now panicking as we are nearing our quarter end and will not be able to hit our targets that we  proposed to our shareholders. In an effort to minimize our profit loss, we ask that we please review each pair of pants to see if there is anything salvageable.  We thank you for your patronage and oh yeah, do one thing a day that scares you.

 

It looks as though that there is a very fine line when it comes to transparency in businesses and social media.  I think that every company should take a look inside themselves and know where that line is and what is ultimately best for their company and their reputation.

 

In the end, I think they recovered nicely.  They ended up owning up to their mistake and made changes in their company that were necessary to hopefully correct the situation moving forward. 

 

I did have a pair of Wunder Unders that were under recall.  I returned them to the store and Lululemon was great, they issued me a gift card immediately, with no questions asked. I am still a fan of Lululemon and I hope that they learned a valuable lesson from all of this.

 

What are your thoughts on how this was handled? Did your opinion of them change?  Do you feel that it is important that companies are transparent in their social media marketing strategies?

 

Let me know your thoughts!  Click on the post title and leave your comments below.

 

Happy Trails!

 

Court