The insurance industry has been beset with the need fortransparency. From how brokers are compensated and what marketincentives are offered to place business with one company, to thesecurity of client information and the management of data, ourindustry has been inundated with regulations and standards forensuring complete transparency.

For many systems developers and solution providers, offeringthose qualities and features have become more important inmarketing their products than ever before. The issue oftransparency has, up until this point, been focused on what resultsfrom use of these tools and implementing new workflows. With thegrowing use of social media, the question of transparency in thisenvironment has shifted more to how you use these new tools thanwhat results from them.

Social media versus e-mail

I don't believe you can pick up a magazine (trade or general)without reading about blogging, Twitter, Facebook or other socialmedia. Every conference you attend most likely will have sessionson these tools and how to use them, how to build an agency policyfor their use, and/or how to build a plan for rolling out their usein marketing or communications.

I can't quite remember, but I'm sure there was as much hubbubaround e-mail when it first appeared in our daily lives. I knowthere were lots of discussions around whether there was any needfor e-mail and all of the “evil” effects it would have on businesscommunications and building relationships.

Until recently, some executives still have misguided pride innot having a computer in their offices or in knowing how to useone. For some, there was even a belief that if they dictated noteto their assistants, who e-mailed the notes, the executives weree-mail savvy.

But that was the extent of the discussions. How would it fitinto the business environment, what impact it would have on normalwritten correspondence, and what influence would e-mail have onrelationships?

Today, however, social media has taken on a whole differentscope of issues–not just how to use it and where it might best fitinto your agency workflow, but where are the limits of its use andwhat crosses the line. This is where the question of ethics comesinto play.

Can the Internet be transparent?

In my February column, I wrote about the “responsibilities ofchange” and the role each of us must play in managing newtechnology. Setting and communicating your agency's policies aroundthe use of social media are part of those responsibilities.

I'm not talking about how much access you should allow yourstaff to Facebook or Twitter, but rather how it is used throughoutyour agency and where do those boundaries lie.

Regardless of the size of your company, the Internet helps levelthe playing field. However, it also can hide the true nature ofthose with whom you are interacting.

An important and valuable aspect of social media is our abilityto tap into what is being said by our customers about our service,products and pricing. Unfortunately, some companies and marketingprofessionals use the anonymity of the Internet to try andmanipulate public opinion. Some company management believe it isokay to ask staff to pose as satisfied customers, go online andpost tweets or comments that tout the great things about thecompany.

While many of you may immediately see the conflict and questionthe ethical boundaries, others do not, frequently citing theoft-used excuse that “people do this all the time.” While that maybe true, it can't be done without accepting the growing consequencethat is becoming very expensive.

In a recent issue of Public Relations Tactics (www.prsa.org), anarticle by Ann Subervi, president and CEO of Utopia Communications,referred to a major PR firm that did work for a Fortune 500 clientand “found itself involved in a public controversy because itsponsored two freelance writers to pose as consumers and postonline blog entries relating to their client.”

Similarly, Subervi writes, a different organization based in NewYork crossed the boundary by urging its employees to go onto reviewsites pretending to be satisfied customers. “As a result, theorganization had to pay $300,000 in penalties to the State of NewYork, one of the first cases in the country aimed at combating'astroturfing,' commonly defined as the artificial creation ofgrassroots buzz for a product, service or political viewpoint,”Subervi wrote.

Does your CEO blog?

More subtle issues of breaching ethical boundaries in the socialmedia environment have to do with executive blogging. The idea ofhaving the president or CEO become the “face” of the corporation,sharing his or her vision and being open to responding to feedback,recently has become a more viable public relations tool. It makesthe company more personable and approachable. Where the issue comesinto play is when, for very legitimate reasons, the executive (orsomeone in the communications/PR department) suggests that someoneghostwrite the blog posts.

For many, ghostwriting a blog for a busy executive is just likeghostwriting a business book for the same executive. For others,there is a great difference. Business books are about demonstratingyour knowledge. As long as you get the information you need fromthe book, who actually wrote the words seems less important.
An executive can be brilliant about his or her area of expertise,but a terrible writer. Why lose out on all that knowledge?

On the other hand, social media is less about the grammaticalexactness of the post than it is about the message conveyed(especially if you've ever seen some of the abbreviations used onthat platform). Social media is as much about buildingrelationships as anything else and, to do that, you need to buildtrust, expose your personality and most importantly, be honest.It's hard to do those tasks through someone else's voice.

People who follow these issues will sometimes distinguish theargument between the personal and business use of social media.Many people are skeptical of any of the reviews about a company orits products or, for that matter, the various blogs a company mayleverage to keep track of what their public is saying. Don't we alltake television commercials with a grain of salt? Why should thatbe any different?

As you progress in your usage of social media for marketing youragency and staying in touch with clients, don't let theimplementation plan you've put in place fall by the wayside. Don'tlet shortcuts compromise your goals. There are ways to accomplishboth.

You shouldn't feel that any use of social media has to be from aspecific person within your agency. Consider setting up a blog thathas several staff contributing to it; just be sure to represent itthat way. Create a Twitter account for your agency and use yourlogo and branding to identify it as such. Then be sure to have inplace and have fully communicated internally, the agency's policyon staff use of social media, what is and isn't appropriate online,etc.

Check out a recent report from the Agent's Council forTechnology (ACT) called Creating a Social Web Policy for Your IndependentAgency. It gives a solid foundation for developing your ownpolicy and helps you avoid those potentially ethical conundrums.Transparency in all of your dealings helps ensure that yourcustomers see you as that trusted and reliable insuranceadvisor.

Beyond e-mail, social media is the first technology agents haveat their disposal that is truly in their control. Agency managementsystems, rating systems or any of the other software you use to doyour job are likely implemented into your agency workflow and servea specific purpose. Social media technology, on the other hand, isa platform that you control for the purpose of your choice, whetherit's marketing, communications, polling, driving discussions orwhatever.

While most people agree that social media tools have put atremendous amount of power into the hands of consumers, it has putan equal amount of power into the hands of business–for those whoto use it responsibly.