Let’s take two sites where you go for advice: Trip Advisor and Which?

Both are transparent and objective but in different ways. It is transparent that the reviews on Trip Advisor are written by the public.

• The reviewers are not required to be objective, although we’d prefer if everyone was.
• The reviewers are not required to be transparent, but read a handful of extreme reviews and you’ll find some people with an agenda.

However, Trip Advisor makes this clear. The site is transparent about the source of review information. It’s up to the reader to decide the honesty/objectivity of the review.

Trip Advisor also offers information on best prices for flights:

TripAdvisor's Flight Search checks thousands of possible itineraries and finds you the lowest fares the most often of any online flight finder.

I have no reason to think that this information is not objective. I don’t mind if a price, based on an airline paying Trip Advisor to promote their product, comes top of the search - providing the web site is open and lets me know that. I'd prefer if the information was objective. I can make the decision based on that knowledge. Trip Advisor presents itself in this as being objective - I've no reason to think otherwise.

Which?  has a different emphasis. Which? is a membership organisation. Its roots are in a published magazine, but is now a web site. It says;

Which? is an independent, not-for-profit organisation. Independent of Government and industry, it is funded through the sale of its consumer magazines, online services and books. We campaign to get a fairer deal for all consumers.

Which? tests products and publishes reviews. We would expect that Which? reviews are objective. Which? has built a reputation based on fairness, objectivity and trust. It is also transparent. But here objectivity comes first.

So does everyone have to be objective on Facebook and Twitter? No – of course not! People are there to spout off in any direction they want to and to expose all their prejudices and opinions. That's what makes it fun.

But if you are representing an organisation and promoting them (or are doing it for money) then you should be transparent. And if you are providing news or important information you should be objective if you are presenting yourself as being objective.

One organisation that struggles to remain objective is the BBC. Here is a speech by Richard Sambrook  former Director, BBC World Service and Global News Division

It’s not just BBC that struggles to be objective - objectivity is not easy. Broadcast news providers in the UK are required by law to be objective. There is a constant conversation between broadcasters, public, regulators, government, business and lots of other interested parties inside and outside those organisations.

In 2009 David Weinberger  - fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society -said 

Transparency gives the reader information by which she can undo some of the unintended effects of the ever-present biases. Transparency brings us to accept ideas as credible the way the claim of objectivity used to.

Scoble and Israel in their book Naked Conversations tell the story about the couple who were travelling America in their camper van and parking overnight in Walmart car parks. They were blogging how wonderful it all was, how fab Walmart is and so on and so forth. However they failed to point out that Walmart was sponsoring their trip. OK, Walmart still exists, it probably didn’t do Walmart too much damage – it was all a tad embarrassing. If the point was to add to the reputation of Walmart, the exercise failed and worse - it chipped away just a little at the reputation.

What damage did it do to the credibility of the bloggers? I don’t know – but I’m glad it was them and not me.

Am I objective and /or transparent? Of course I’m going to say WIMPS is a marvellous project. But I’m going to post in my profile that I work for Public Achievement which runs WIMPS. Transparent. And objective?  That's for you to decide. I hope I'm being honest because WIMPS is a fantastic project - if it wasn't I wouldn't be there.

When we establish ourselves on line we become a brand – we need to manage our personal brand if we want to develop trust and influence with people who follow/read/’friend’ us.

If we want to be credible and have a consistent online reputation.

We have an exciting induction programme which we will be rolling out over the next few weeks.

Earlier this year I carried out some scientifically dubious, yet pleasingly interesting research about Blackberry handsets (particularly Curve) and young people.

From the information gathered, it appeared that the handset of choice for young people was the Blackberry.

Now sales figures for Blackberry show that they are being slaughtered by iPhone since round about the time I did my little survey.

We each did an opening 10 minuter leading to a Q&A.

I was talking to notes rather than a written piece, so I'm just putting out some of the headlines I had stuck down. The audience was largely people who were new to or had only some understanding of social media and was to help them develop use of social media within an organisation to promote the message or view of that organisation.

Here are some of the points.

• We are all professionals. If we are asked to take on a new project we instinctively know where to start. Yet with social media a lot of people go a bit insane. Remember what you already know about business of project management - start with a plan.
• Agree a strategy.
• Identify resources - social media is not free. The platforms can be, but it takes people to make it happen.
• Build in new resources. If you don't know what you need find out.
• Do a social media audit in your organisation - find out uses what and why (and check to see if they are any good) - they will become your ambassadors. Find out who doesn't and why. 
• If people argue against social media or dismiss it, listen to their arguments. The get them to make the same arguments but replace 'social media' or 'Twitter' or 'Facebook' (etc) with the words 'talking to people'. (E,g, 'Social Media is a waste of time' = 'Talking to people is a waste of time'. The point is Social Media is talking to people, not piddling around in front of your computer all day wasting time. But without that plan it will be aimless.
• Know what you want to achieve - make that part of your plan/strategy.
• Build in measurements and measuring tools so you know if you are achieving your goals
• TIME - make time but use it efficiently.  Social media (like talking to people) takes time.
• Don't just talk - listen.
• Don't just talk about yourself. If you just talk about yourself you will bore people. Talk about other interesting things - what you read, what you see etc.
• Contribute to the conversation. Don't just use your own social media - go to where other people are talking and contribute - but please don't just peomote your message
• Decide on the tone - if there is more than one person representing the organisation, work on the VOICE
• Work to balance personal and professional.
• Build a community and manage that community.
• Understand who makes up that community - supporters, staff, board of directors, followers, the people you want to influence. Who are the others?
• When you are online - don't be stupid.
• Be the person - not the computer.