I posed this simple question on Twitter last week: “What’s the right amount of disclosure on Twitter when it comes to client work?”
The responses surprised me a little. They ranged from “disclose every time” to “once in a while.” It was a lively discussion with a number of folks weighing in.
Given the interest in the topic, I thought we’d kick off a more long-form discussion by getting a number of different viewpoints from a few people I respect from across the country. I’d love your take in the comments.
Richie Escovedo, director of media and communications, Mansfield Independent School District
I’ve been thinking about the client disclosure question on Twitter. While I agree in principle that a client disclosure is probably a good idea, I also think you can in good conscience share via Twitter if you find things truly interesting. To me it leads to the question of intent.
Am I providing a service for a client by sharing their link/event/news with my network? Yes.
Am I being unethical if I don’t make it a point to be clear that they are a client? Yes.
For me a great set of guidelines come from the PRSA Code of Ethics that “zero in on putting value and principles into play for working professionals facing everyday tasks and challenges. Among them, professionals should: (partial list)
- Be honest and accurate in all communications.
- Reveal sponsors for represented causes and interests.
- Act in the best interest of clients or employers.
I think these first three points sum it up quite nicely and answer are question for PR professionals.
But not everyone abides by the PRSA Code of Ethics. While true, this does not excuse PR professionals from ignoring smart business practice. First, do no harm: think of it this way, if there is the potential of doing harm to the business relationship, then why risk it? If you value your professional and personal network, you will want to be as open as possible with these types of relationships so as to avoid any conflicts of interest perceived or real.
Julie Bonn Heath, JBH Marketing & Public Relations
The key for me is how genuine I can remain.
I tell potential clients upfront that I will not use my Twitter stream to promote them (I have had some contact for services based strictly on my “reach”). And the reason I will not is because I am a very genuine person both online and off. What you see is what you get and my integrity is very important to me. That is NOT the reason for my stream.
But I won’t lie.
So if I am truly enjoying a client or their service/product, I may tweet about them a couple of times (possibly even after contract ends) for the purpose of letting my followers find out about a great product or service. If I don’t feel that my followers will benefit, I won’t tweet it.
I also sometimes tweet about potential clients to help support them-and again if I believe in the product/service/cause and if my followers might benefit.
And of course, I do keep in touch with clients on Twitter so sometimes they are in my tweets via the @ function.
Gini Dietrich, CEO, Arment Dietrich, Inc.
“What is the right amount of disclosure for client work on Twitter?”
Our philosophy on social media is that people want to connect with the people INSIDE the company, not some PR firm working on building their client’s brands. So, unless you are a gigantic brand that doesn’t have a person’s face associated with you, we will not tweet for you. That being said, we will retweet what our clients tweet, we will tweet about something they’re doing from our own handles, and we will brainstorm with them for campaigns that will elicit response, drive traffic, and build brand awareness.
If we tweet about a client, we always write the tweet and then (client) at the end. If we are retweeting the client, we don’t write (client) as part of our retweet because it’s not our original thought. It’s all a balancing act because you want to be transparent, but you also want to help your clients. I say, err on the side of caution, especially if it’s a new client, and see what works with your community and what doesn’t work. If you’ve built a tribe of people who don’t care about what it is that your client does, don’t hurt the relationships you’ve built on behalf of your brand in order to help your client(s). Social media and its transparency have a way, now, of allowing us to say “no thanks” to the clients who truly don’t fit our brands.
Thank you, Richie, Julie and Gini. Very interesting–and well-thought-out–perspectives. What’s my take? To me, the whole Twitter disclosure conversation boils down to one word: over-disclose. I just don’t see any situation where it’s not relevant that you’re tweeting about, or on behalf, of a client that’s paying you money to perform marketing, PR or communications services.
Many folks asked in our discussion on Twitter why you need to disclose every time? Isn’t once enough? For me, it isn’t. Here’s why. How many of your followers are going to see that first tweet when you disclose? Probably a handful. So, the next time you mention the client, they will assume you’re just a fan of the organization. While in reality, that may be true, that client is still paying you for a service, which immediately disqualifies you as an objective third-party endorser.
I also think there’s an ethical claim at stake here. As Richie notes above, the PRSA Code of Ethics play into this for me, personally. I know not everyone’s a PRSA member like Richie and myself, but for me, that’s important.
OK, enough pontificating. What do you think? How much disclosure on Twitter is appropriate when talking about client work? Where’s the line between ethical and unethical? Is this even an ethical dilemma?
Arik,
Thanks for putting this together (and for including me in with some smart people.) I really appreciated Julie’s point of sharing if she believes “in the product/service/cause and if [her] followers might benefit.” That is sort of what I meant by intent. If my intent is to share something worthwhile for followers, then I have less of an issue with it.
Thank you to Gini for the simple, yet effective, addition of “(client)” within a tweet for disclosure. I’m interested to see what others think.
@vedo
Great post, as this is an important issue. Twitter is still very much of a wild west environment where standards have not been established. I agree with Gini that a simple (client) designation, or #client for those of us that favor hashtags, for an original tweet should be considered every time, whether the tweet is explicitly requested by a client or just provided as support for their social media efforts. It is a bad practice to write situational tweets with links that actually promote a client’s content and don’t indicate a client relationship. For example, “I just made coffee for the whole office,” and the link takes you a video from a coffee service. This is where transparency becomes an issue. Retweets are a different matter and don’t seem to require the client label.
One final issue is whether the tweet is from a person or an agency. Since the agency doesn’t have the same experiences as a person, tweets about a client would be crafted very differently and would be assumed to a be about a client. In practice though, agencies primarily seem to retweet clients rather than write original tweets.
Jeff Cohen
SocialMediaB2B.com
I put my job right on my Twitter profile, so I don’t feel the need to disclose every time I tweet something work-related. Of course, my employer is my only “client” so that’s probably different than someone with several contracts. If I did, I’d have to put a disclosure after virtually every tweet, which would be more annoying than helpful.
Richie,
I knew we were on the same page. LOL.
Arik,
Thanks for the opportunity to share my views. The PRSA Code is something we should all take into consideration, members or not.
@juliebonnheath
Great post!
The best thing (in my opinion) about Twitter is the personal connection. Successful twitter accounts come from real people, not from enterprises (even if the account name is a business/corp, the tweets, the interactions, are real).
There is a sense of trust, of respect, between you and our followers. Otherwise why would they keep following you? They like to think you aren’t just trying to sell them on something. I can’t count the number of accounts I have ‘unfollowed’ because I see them merely as marketing tools.
That is why I think transparency is so important. A simple, ‘check out my client,’ or hashtag is really easy and probably won’t hurt your reputation (or your clients).
Are followers less likely to click on the link? Probably not. In fact, if you have already established a good relationship with them, they will probably be more inclined to check out the link and support you and your client.
Danielle
Atomicdust.com
I agree with Danielle. Transparency, transparency, transparency. I don’t go on to Twitter to buy products, but when the PEOPLE behind the products engage with me, I tend to lean to those brands when making purchases.
@MolliMegasko
Smart comments from my co-authors. I like the addition of the PRSA code of ethics, which we live anyway. And I agree with Julie that we won’t tweet about a client if it doesn’t offer value to our own communities.
Like Molli says, this is about transparency and authenticity. People will find out if you’re neither and they will take you down. And quickly. It’s a good thing Molli said that, BTW, because we work together.
P.S. Where the heck did you get that picture? It has to be five or six years old!
Great topic! I completely agree with you, Arik. I prefer to over-disclose and mention that you’re tweeting about a client every time…not just the first time.
I can see where someone who just represents one company and includes that in his/her Twitter profile wouldn’t need to disclose every company-related tweet. But I think it’s important to be transparent in my case because I work at a PR agency and represent several clients.
The varying perspectives on this post are interesting. Thanks for bringing up this topic!
I feel very strongly about this. I *always* say it’s my client. That’s the only way to be transparent. Whether I’m Tweeting, Re-tweeting, @replying… I ALWAYS say it’s a client. In fact, for further disclosure, I created a Twitter list of my clients. So this way, in addition to my mid-Tweet disclosure, people can also refer to my client list for more information about who I Tweeted about and why.
LOVE the Twitter list idea! That is brilliant!
Disclosure, in my opinion, is always best. If we are managing a client’s social media efforts, we clearly indicate that in the bio/profile element. If we send out something on our personal accounts that is client-related, we say it is a client. People want to interact with people and I think it is best to be upfront with “who” the people are.
This is precisely why I advocate for companies to disclose who they are — the people steering every tweet and reply — and not rely on someone like me to ask that question.
For background: http://ariwriter.com/case-study-of-4-companies-on-twitter/
I may be an oddball in the PR world, but because I specialize in representing companies that are part of the same community I’m in (law enforcement), I have no qualms about tweeting things I’m excited about. I do disclose they’re a client, absolutely. But I think it would actually be a little irresponsible of me not to tweet when I know it’s an important investigative tool, for instance.
Interesting question raised here, Arik. But what Julie said struck me:
“I also sometimes tweet about potential clients to help support them-and again if I believe in the product/service/cause and if my followers might benefit.”
So does this mean she doesn’t *always* believe in her clients or who she works with? To me, if you don’t believe in something, you probably shouldn’t be their PR person because that in itself is unethical, not omitting putting “client” in a tweet.
Deanna (@dferrari)
I always believe in my clients or I wouldn’t take them on. Period. But just because I believe in my client doesn’t necessarily mean that my Twitter stream will benefit from hearing about them.
Feel free in the future to ask me a direct question when you have them. Thank you.
Definitely agree that if something doesn’t make sense to share with your followers, you shouldn’t tweet about it. The way you worded it just came across as though you only tweet about clients you find valuable. But given your response, you find all of your clients valuable, just that your followers may not benefit from what they have to say and you’re being helpful to them.
Also, that’s why I included you in my tweet, so you would see my comment on this post. I’m a little late on the post but wanted to chime in on the convo and just give my two cents, because that’s what the comments are for.
Deanna
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