The importance of ethics in social media marketing is a conversation swirling around all of us whether you are aware of it or not. Layering social media marketing platforms on top of traditional marketing distribution channels means as marketers we are “changing the tire while driving at 90 miles an hour.” It also means we have so much content at our fingertips that some are acting without thinking in terms of what they take from where (or who). Is it okay to grab photos, graphs, PowerPoints whatever we like from the smorgasbord the Internet offers and use these resources in workshops, presentations or websites without attribution or credit?
If you said yes—think again. The ethics of use of Internet resources is evolving as we speak. And the good news is it will be a hybrid allowing for attribution as well as sharing and collaboration.
Visit our Resource Page here and download a really great PowerPoint on ethics in social media marketing by Karl Kasca of IncreasingOnlineProfits.com. I share it with you with his permission. I encourage you to download it from our site. It is great ethics etiquette roadmap for content attribution and use. It will serve you well as a reference. Just click to download “Ethics In Social Media Marketing” from our Resource Page.
Another good gauge is to follow the attribution, ownership and use language you’ll find in policy change announcements of key players. Follow Pinterest’s ongoing evolution of its use and attribution policies. And we’ve also seen similar conversations arise in the maturing of YouTube -do you own the rights to the video you put up or do they? And the same with Facebook and on and on.
You find Google wrestling with this in Google Images. And, you see a great initiative in the Flickr/Creative Commons synergy forged to develop standardize attribution and sharing guidelines, and to make it a good source of Creative Commons licensed photographs.
If you are a digital journalist, a digital content curator or you’re grabbing slides from Powershow, Authorstream or Hashdoc inventory of whitepapers and PowerPoints for an academic paper this changing landscape impacts you.
I recommend diving into the Creative Commons website and not only checking out their efforts to manage rights but also getting involved in initiatives find there that will help define the landscape. Obviously the win-win will be standards of use that provide attribution credit, and don’t impinge on revenue potential for owners, yet maintain the collaborative and social nature of the Internet.
Think about it –you are developing content and putting it out on the “net.” What acknowledgement or attribution do feel you should have a right to? What would your reaction be to unwittingly running across some of your own hard work or fabulous photos on a stranger’s site ….. or a billboard without your blessing?
