PrintOn February 12, we devoted one of the Path of the Blue Eye Project's Casual Conversation Webinars to the important, but difficult issue of transparency in social media. It's expected that health organizations engage in transparent behaviors while using social media and beyond, but is this expectation realistic? What does transparency mean to you? What's your threshold for transparency? Let us know what you think.
Which camp are you in? Total or Degree
By johncass on Friday, February 12, 2010
As part of the transparency blog post Toby and I wrote together, we categorized author's contributions into the Total Transparency Camp and the Degrees of Transparency Camp. Which care are you in?
Healthcare Social Media Transparency - Shades of Gray
By Toby Bloomberg on Friday, February 12, 2010
@Fard - Thanks for the opportunity for John Cass and me to kick-start this important discussion. As we learned from the webinar, in healthcare, where one might assume total transparency would be the entree fee to social media participation, that is not the case. There are many shades of gray which add another layer of complexity for organizations to consider when they create a social media strategy.
Each enterprise must determine, as John termed, the best "level of transparency" that not only supports the brand promise, the culture of the organization, most importantly the expectations of patients/customers/stakeholders but the rules of the road for healthcare in general. Issues to consider range from do we always disclose the author of the all content to how to position consultants/agencies and freelancers if we do want to disclose to branded or personal avatars and beyond.
Looking forward to continuing and hear more thoughts and ideas.
Toby @tobydiva
New WOMMA Resource
By nweinreich on Wednesday, February 17, 2010
WOMMA just came out with its Guide to Disclosure in Social Media Marketing that addresses a lot of the issues we discussed. It takes into account the recent FTC rulings and offers best practices around the various aspects of transparency on many different social media platforms.
http://womma.org/ethics/disclosure/
Thanks for the Resource!
By fjohnmar on Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Nedra:
Thanks so much for the WOMMA resource. I think this is an important development. Look for an article on the WOMMA recommendations on the Living the Path wiki in the days to come. I'll update this reply with a link when it's been developed.