Honest is the best policy in social media

Photo credit: chellybbb

I was talking about what social media taught me about politics previously.  Komodo Dragon‘s comment is right that when somebody lies, they can’t keep that lie forever.  This brings me to think deeper about honesty.

Dishonesty in business growth

Dishonesty has helped a lot of businesses grow tremendously because of the chicken and egg issue.  They thought that they have to “tell a white lie” to the customers that there is a huge demand for their products when there is none.  And when that really happens, that white lie has become the “future truth”.  Just imagine telling the world a lie… It may work for some, but the rest will know what you are up to.

Insufficient information due to location differences

A lot of businessmen took the advantage of geographic locations to make profits.  Because there is a lack of certain products in that country, they import the products and tag a ridiculous pricing to it.  I don’t really consider this as a lie… But it is definitely not being honest in their business.  If the people ever knew that that particular product costs so much cheaper in another place, they will definitely feel cheated.

To be fair, because there are different financial situations in different countries, there are definitely bound to have different pricing strategy as well.  However, if the pricing is really that huge, people will start to think of the otherwise.

Internet has centralized the prices

Because of the Internet, the different pricing strategies are being revealed in an instant.  And also because of Internet, a lot of product launches in different countries tend to be no longer a secret because it is already known from one of the countries when it was first launched!  For example, we already know about Apple iPhone and Apple iPad even before they are launched in Singapore!

Internet has centralized the product information

In fact, Singapore’s product launch formula will be very different from other countries since the potential customers already know about it… They probably need to launch it in such a way that “This product is finally reaching Singapore!”… And it will be a lie if they have this positioning statement “For the first time in history, we have launched this product!”

I bet many companies are having problem with their product launches when their journalists already know about that product… Or even worse, when the journalist bought that particular product from another country and reviewed it even before it has been launched!

Social media has made Internet very interactive

With the increasing participation in the social media, everybody in the world has the ability to publish a certain piece of information on the Internet very easily…. And to make things even worse, everyone of us can even interact publicly in front of the whole world.

Honesty is your only solution

Because you can no longer cover up anything (everything actually), your only solution is to be honest.  And the good thing about being honest is that we can grow positively because we can take in every single complaint and turn it into a solution in our new and existing products.

Honesty is the best policy!  The Internet has changed it all… In terms of business as well as in your personal life…. What do you think?