Why Your Company Should be Made of Windows Instead of Walls

Transparency has become a buzzword as the social media revolution has disrupted the old ways of doing business. It is no longer acceptable to hide business activities behind walls by concealing company operations and keeping employees and customers apart. Under that obscure model, business leaders cannot expect to attain people who will like and trust them, or who will return to do business with them again.

Your brand is either ubiquitous or invisible in the world of social media. Part of that ubiquity is allowing your audience to see and know candidly the personality and performance of your company. Where yesterday's companies succeeded, despite having informational fortresses, today's companies are fully exposed by social media and growing, despite being out in the open. There is nothing to hide when a core part of a company’s business strategy is to do the right things to serve their customers and their bottom line at the same time.

You've probably heard of Zappos. They are a shoe company that has dominated their market. They have over 200 employees, all of whom tweet on Twitter as part of their daily job responsibilities (including CEO, Tony Hsieh). In nine years they went from zero to $1 billion in sales, and - according to Mr. Hsieh - the No. 1 driver of that growth has been repeat customers and word-of-mouth advertising.

Granted, this catalog shoe business was not originally built around social media, but that is how their growth exploded. The company was turning its employees into Influencers with customers in all manner of business, while doing it with transparency. Beyond this, the company started with a focus on conducting customer service in new, different and better ways that were sometimes more expensive in the short-term, but were viewed as investments in building long-term relationships with life-long customers. This philosophy is at the heart of why transparent Influencer Marketing and word of mouth advertising are so effective when done well and given time to bloom.

Having company secrets, doing what's good for shareholders but bad for consumers, and marketing through trickery, hype and manipulation are outdated business practices. With consumers now having as much or more influence than traditional media and advertising, those tactics no longer work. Treat customers badly and people will find out. Once they find out, if you do the right thing to swiftly remedy the situation, they'll forgive and support you. There's more incentive now than ever to behave responsibly all the time and less incentive to do the self-serving things that create public relations messes in the first place.

The companies that are not voluntarily embracing transparent business practices are immediately suspected under the scrutiny of the new world of social media networking. All it takes is one well-connected Influencer to spread the word to his followers about a bad customer relations experience and tens of thousands of people may have that information within minutes. The exponential quality of that one communication is very powerful – and it can serve to do a company harm or good, depending on what is being shared and how the company leadership responds.

We are deeper into the influence economy every day as the social web expands and evolves. The fewer walls your company puts up and more windows it installs to cast daylight on its operations, greater trust and loyalty will emerge among current and future customers. Harnessing the power of the social web can lead to building valuable bonds with key Influencers who love to spread good news – and that is great news for companies who have nothing to hide.