14 Less-Known Ways to Increase Transparency Through Social Media

Social media is among the most accessible platforms today. People openly voice their opinions there, leading to massive customer feedback opportunities for brands. But what about the other direction? Sadly, not all companies see the need to be transparent with their customers. This method of thinking may lead to dire fallout later on.

Consumers, especially those who grew up around the turn of the millennium, see trust and transparency as a significant trait in the businesses they deal with. Encouraging transparency will only draw more of this type of consumer in, resulting in greater awareness of your brand online and a growing base of loyal customers. To help, 14 members from Young Entrepreneur Council share their opinions on how brands or professionals could increase transparency with their audience by leveraging social media.

1. Spotlight Your Leadership Team

Get your leadership team in front of the camera! Videos with quick tips, a motivational spirit and thought-provoking topics are a great way to showcase your decision-makers and establish a personal connection with your online audience. Now, don’t worry about creating the highest-quality visual content. Break down the digital barrier by picking up your phone, pressing record and going for it! – Shay Berman, Digital Resource

2. Interact More With Audience Content

Interact more with their content. If you have a large audience, you can’t do this with everyone but make it a point to comment and share when you find something useful. LinkedIn is good for this, especially if you’re doing business-to-business marketing. This doesn’t mean trying to promote to people with posts and IMs, which is “spammy,” but interacting in a natural way for long-term networking. – Kalin Kassabov, ProTexting

3. Create ‘Know, Like and Trust’

Increase transparency with your audience by using your social channels to create “know, like and trust” with your entire team. At MeetEdgar, we have a team page that lets our customers feel like they can step into our virtual office. And when they see a certain team member pop up on social media, they can tie a face to a name. – Laura Roeder, Paperbell

4. Offer a Look Behind the Scenes

Behind-the-scenes videos are always interesting because people are naturally curious about how a business works. You can create short videos of your employees, work being done, customer stories and other information and share them on social media. This type of content will build trust, celebrate your employees and showcase the way your business works. It’s a simple way to create transparency. – Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner

5. Show Your Progress Over Time

You surely didn’t start your business in its current state and you’ll definitely evolve in the times to come. So why not use social media to show your progress over time? It can be a small achievement like delivering your first order, hiring your first employee, etc. Sharing these special moments with your audience can make things more transparent. It will also make you appear more real. – Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster

6. Have a Q&A Session

Organize a Q&A session on social media to increase transparency. Transparency is perfect, especially if the details presented are needed and highly requested — whether it’s about making new products, having promos, ingredients in a product, etc. At the end of the day, transparency should not cross the line of your privacy/security and it should be highly requested, not just an instance of oversharing. – Daisy Jing, Banish

7. Ask for Feedback on Facebook

We send out a link to our company Facebook page and ask customers to leave their feedback. The result? In just three years we’ve amassed over 7,500 likes and hundreds of comments and ratings for 4.9 out of 5 stars! Now our Facebook page is our “electronic billboard” for customer service and we get to keep in touch with customers through our posts! – Bill Mulholland, ARC Relocation

8. Focus on Educating and Entertaining

The common way brands lose credibility on social media is by simply spamming the audience “offers” to purchase a product or service without providing any value. Instead focus on teaching, entertaining, igniting a conversation and gaining feedback. Social media is the best tool for brands to communicate expertise with their audience to build transparency. – Kelly Richardson, Infobrandz

9. Make Known What You Stand For

Decide what it is you stand for, and make it known on social media! Sure, it can produce conflict for some, but those aren’t the people you want following you anyway! For others, it will create great loyalty to know what you believe in and what you stand for! It feels transparent and people are drawn to that! – Diego Orjuela, Cables & Sensors

10. Use Audio Social Media

Use audio social media, which is on the rise due to the popularity of ClubHouse, a social media app. Join the conversion on the topics your business wants to be known in. Many professionals do not have time for their own podcasts, so the ClubHouse app is great to literally get your voice heard, without having to plan, execute, and promote a podcast. – Matthew Capala, Alphametic

11. Leverage Video Content

Video, video and (live) video. Livestream, Zoom, post informational videos — and talk to the people in your community. Why should your audience continue to engage with you if you won’t talk to them, too? To increase transparency quickly (and easily), make like the Wizard of Oz and come out from behind the curtain. – Kelly Ann Collins, Vult Lab

12. Openly Admit When You’re Wrong

A great way to make your company more transparent on social media is to admit when you are wrong. Every CEO and company makes mistakes. Rarely do they admit it at the time. Instead of trying to cover up a mistake, share it with your audience and show how you plan to fix it. By showing this level of honesty to your followers, you will gain their trust and convert more of them into loyal customers. – Shaun Conrad, Guitar Repair Bench

13. Create Consistent Engagement

Create a Facebook group to create a consistent stream of engagement with your existing clients. Make every day an opportunity to ask about their experiences, both the good and the bad. Delegate that task to a team of service experts that will be answering every query on the dot. As the leader of the company you also have to initiate the conversation with your clients on their experiences. – Solomon Thimothy, OneIMS

14. Create a Year-End Review

One of the things we do with the brands in our company is to create a year-end review for our audience. This consists of a page that has infographic-type content. We feature images, numbers, and text that highlight the achievements of the year and what we’re looking forward to next. It’s a simple way to create transparency with our customers and also builds social proof. – Blair Williams, MemberPress