“Four things you must do, four things to avoid, and six tips to make your life easier.”
Since I sent you my ‘GDPR in plain English; 10 steps to take now,’ I’ve spent a good deal of time on webinars, in chatrooms and at expert panels, where some very smart people have presented their own interpretations of what GDPR really means to us small business owners.
But the truth is, it’s still a greyish area. Maybe not an infamous 50 shades, but certainly enough hues to confuse an awful lot of people. The guidance is quite clear; how to put it into practice somewhat less so…
There are six lawful reasons for ‘processing personal data’ – in other words, storing information and emailing people. In reality, for most people reading this, only two reasons are likely to apply:
- Legitimate interest; and
- Consent
Let’s focus on consent, because what we believe to be consent isn’t necessarily recognised as consent under the new law. Here are four things you must do, four things to avoid, and six tips to make your life easier.
You must:
- Gain clear re-consent to email everyone on your mailing list. This means ‘affirmative action’ on their part. We can’t simply assume it’s okay to continue emailing them because they haven’t told us otherwise.
. - Gain consent to email new people. We can’t work on the presumption that a business card swap at a networking lunch implies agreement to join a mailing list.
. - Keep a clear record of when and why each person gave their consent. This includes recording how they “signed up,” what you told them you’d do with their data and what your privacy policy was on that date. I’ll be keeping a simple Excel spreadsheet from now on and hoping that’s sufficient.
. - Have an up-to-date privacy policy that is clearly accessible on your website, not hidden in the footer. (Mine’s still in the footer…)
You can’t:
- Keep anyone’s personal data after May 25th if they haven’t agreed to it (unless one of the other reasons applies – such as legitimate interest or contract). You have to delete it! Yes, I know… all those years of carefully cultivating an email list.
. - Collect people’s information without a good reason. And only ask for what you need – don’t try to find out ‘sensitive data’ like date of birth, dress size, skin colour or who they fancy – unless you can absolutely justify why you need this information.
. - Email people for any reason other than what you’ve agreed with them. So you might hope to raise extra money for charity by emailing your business list to let them know you’re doing a sponsored parachute jump – and chances are no one will report you for this – but it’s not allowed under the new rules. Likewise, you can’t take someone’s email to send them a free gift then add them to a mailing list for marketing. This applies to social media marketing too – so there should be no more signing up for anything via Facebook then receiving unrelated emails from the same company or an associated one.
. - Ignore the law. Lots of people are poo-pooing the extortionate fines being quoted – after all, would the ICO really bankrupt a small business owner for sending an email to someone who hadn’t agreed? Of course not, but the aggravation of a potential investigation is surely not worth it.
There are various things you can do to make the transition into GDPR-compliancy easier for yourself.
These six tips should make the process easier!
- Add a clearly worded Privacy Policy to your website. Make sure it’s written in plain English and addresses all the points necessary to make it GDPR compliant.
. - Audit your sign-up process. Check the way you add people to your mailing list – through a website sign-up form, via a Facebook promotion, from business cards, from a ‘pop your card in this jar to win a bottle of champagne’ scheme. Then ensure the way you add them moving forward complies with the law.
. - Watch a brilliant two-hour webinar with a specialist GDPR lawyer named Suzanne Dibble here. She worked for Richard Branson to set up Virgin’s data protection compliance and she runs a very useful Facebook group. (I’ve seen the video – she also has many short videos on various different GDPR-related topics.) There’s a link to a useful GDPR checklist too.
. - Buy Suzanne’s legal document pack. (I haven’t done this but I’ve seen many recommendations for it on Facebook.) This includes a standard privacy policy.
. - Remember that it’s about being reasonable. Could someone ‘reasonably’ expect to receive email from you? If in doubt, leave them out.
. - Reframe the whole ‘losing loads of subscribers’ issue in your mind. View it as an opportunity to clean up your mailing list. Having fewer people on your list can actually be helpful as you’ll have better open and engagement rates, which means more of your emails will land in people’s inboxes and fewer will go into their trash.
I’ve used the word interpretation in my heading as that’s what this is – my interpretation of it, based on hours of research and my ability to quickly sift through mounds of conflicting information to find the linguistic diamond in the sand.
So, just to get my own little beachball rolling, if you’d like to stay subscribed to my mailing list to receive social media tips – or you’d like to sign-up now, please leave your name and email in the sign up box below.
You can unsubscribe at any time, of course. On a final note, signing up confirms that you’ve read and understand our privacy and cookies policy. Thanks!
I hope these notes are helpful. Please tell me if you’d like to know more about the ‘Legitimate Interest’ basis for processing personal data and I’ll cover that next time.
A few weeks ago I received an invitation to connect with another social media consultant. I’m usually happy to link up online with other people in my field as it’s great to be able to share ideas and – occasionally – concerns, and have meaningful discussions about the digital media marketing world. Also, there’s always the chance of cross-referrals if one person is too busy to take on new clients, so it’s good to have other people to recommend.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and CEO, has decreed that Facebook’s goal is to focus on helping people to have meaningful social interactions with their friends and families. He said, “We built Facebook to help people stay connected and bring us closer together with the people that matter to us. That’s why we’ve always put friends and family at the core of the experience. Research shows that strengthening our relationships improves our well-being and happiness.”
If one of your business resolutions is to up your game on the social media front, here are three of my favourite tools to help you on your way. They’ll give you a kick-start to achieving your goal in a smooth and easy-to-maintain way. In each case, there’s a free version as well as a paid option that gives you more features.
One of my clients provides facilities management services to hotels, so we recently set up a two-day stand at the Independent Hotel Show at Olympia to meet prospective clients. Trade shows are hard work. The environment is hot and airless, with miles of walking along aisles or hours standing – yet the opportunities to meet future customers is wonderful. I was working on their behalf, so I wasn’t targeting social media clients, but hoteliers. However, I did benefit from the eclectic range of free giveaways – bringing home everything from chocolates and coffee samples, to a few shiny bags of lovely mini toiletries – and a rubber duck!
If you saw the photos I posted on Facebook and Instagram, you’ll know that I found the afternoon a great success! I have a very generous boyfriend who, like me, is a chocoholic, so I returned home weighed down with fancy bags full of delicious, mouth-watering treats. They’ve all gone now, but fortunately a well-timed birthday has restocked my treats cupboard!
In a month of chocolate-filled decadence, I took some time out, working at the very beautiful Hambleton Hall Hotel in Rutland. The autumn sun was warm and washed the lovely gardens in a glow that was more befitting to a summer’s day. I’ve long worked on the basis of have laptop will travel – and the beauty of social media is that so much can be handled from a phone. It’s a luxury I make the most of in my business. So I sat on the terrace with my hot chocolate and a smoked salmon sandwich watching the swallows swoop over the lake as I crafted a few client blogs and set the week’s tweets.
Back to the reality of the city and, by coincidence, another business exhibition, this time organised by YBC. I had a stand close to the buffet table (of course!) and chatted all day to people interested in how good social media marketing can boost their business profile. I was invited to speak on an ‘Expert Panel’ too, answering social media-related queries, and I had the pleasure of meeting a lot of incredibly interesting business-owners as a result.
From the photos I posted on Facebook, it clearly looks like I’m a groupie for various familiar actors and actresses. Yet, however it looked, I wasn’t auditioning for a part in Coronation Street. I think I offended Shobna Gulati when I tactlessly told her I was sad they’d killed her off in the fire; she said she was pretty upset about it too!!
Our whirlwind tour took in all these tourist attractions, and more; I’m a very good tour guide, even if I do say so myself. I’ve managed to pick up enough trivia on my previous trips to marginally impress an American. While I was in charge of museums, galleries, cathedrals and high-in-the-sky landmarks, Stephen was responsible for food places – typical French cuisine, of course, with lots of melting cheese, cured ham, locally sourced paté and bread. Lots and lots of bread. (For him, not me. I was happy with a diet of chocolate croissants and chocolate mousse.) And red wine, it’s healthy.
Time definitely turned back this week when I took a couple of lovely teenage girls to Gatsby’s Drugstore in Borough for an immersive evening of 
Time also stood still at a performance of 
On the other side of the family, crazy cute Stephen appeared via Facebook five years ago. He’s here for a visit now, and we braved the forecast gales on Sunday to admire the cityscape from the Sky Garden. London is phenomenal from the sky, and 35 floors up you get a fabulous view of the eclectic mix of architecture and the sheer scale of the best city in the world. We’re taking time out to visit another of my favourites this week: Paris. No doubt we’ll be tweeting!