FlowerFolio is a business, not necessarily in the market for profit, but standing first and foremost for integrity. Our photography is about visual storytelling from lives well lived, and our social media marketing is about rethinking the use and design of social media platforms so that as marketers and as users, we use social media with integrity. At FlowerFolio we are committed to your privacy rights and this policy outlines our ongoing obligations to you in respect of our Ethical Principles.
1. INTEGRITY
FlowerFolio is about integrity. Integrity is our foremost value. This means we believe in honesty, strong ethical principles, and doing the right thing in all circumstances, whether or not something is required by law. This is why we’re upfront about disrupting the businesses of photography and social media marketing.
2. RESPONSIBILITY
FlowerFolio is also about responsibility. Not just Corporate Social Responsibility, and all the buzzwords like Diversity and Inclusion. We believe that everything we do has a footprint on the world, and we strive to make that a positive one. This also means we have a responsibility to be honest when we make mistakes, and when we believe anyone who engages with us, especially online, has the opportunity and the choice to do so in a meaningful way, which leads us to…
3. ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRANSPARENCY
FlowerFolio exists mostly online – on our website (wordpress.org, bluehost), through our emails, through our print shop (society6), through our social media (facebook, instagram, twitter, pinterest, youtube, tumblr, 500px, and any other site). This means we need to be held to account and be as transparent as possible about how and why we use these digital tools.
4. RESPECT
FlowerFolio will not stand for hate speech, inflammatory attacks, or any other kind of bullying. This is not a question of free speech. This is a question of putting others first. We respect your epistemic, privacy, and individual rights, and believe that our society is changing. It is no longer a question of property or ownership rights; it is a question of who has the power to reproduce meaning in our information society, and so…
5. CONSENT
FlowerFolio will not collect any data that isn’t provided with your express consent or necessary for basic engagement with us on digital tools. We want your informed and autonomous consent to engage with us on social media, which is why we keep a summary of our Ethical Principles, as well as a basic infographic on the current state of social media and surveillance capitalism on our website, so that you understand a like or a follow or a click is absolutely a decision you must make.
At the bottom line, despite being a business, FlowerFolio’s main purpose is not profit. FlowerFolio is about living with integrity. At first, this was about living the little things in life, like the flowers. It expanded a little, the way life grows, into travel and food and portraits, collaborating with others, and selling prints. And now it’s grown and evolved even further into a digital life that we hope we live with integrity.
The way that users and marketers engage with social media needs to change, and for that reason we created The Social Studio, to try to examine the ways in which we could use our own (and others’) Ethical Principles to guide our social media lives, which have become inextricably intertwined with our real-life human ones.
This is why we use the internet for community, for meaningful content, for wider conversations. We invite you into these dialogues, hoping to provide purpose, context, and support for all involved on either side of these exchanges.
Website
FlowerFolio does not pay for advertising on any platforms. We believe that advertising mixed with social media and websites are destructive forces, and do not want in on any of these. We do not make money from our content. We are not influencers, we are not marketers, we are not third-party advertisers. We are humans.
We also have complete control over who and how you engage with us on our website, including in our comments section, which is moderated.
Our Privacy Policy available here and our Cookie Policy available here provide further regulatory information about your website use.
Social Media
FlowerFolio recognises there are many complex forces at play in the social media world. But the biggest problem is that it is an exploitative, capitalist model that reimagines colonisation. We believe social media platforms need to change, and realise this requires change from many fronts, both within and without these companies, but we have set our own rules as well:
❦ We do not set quantitative marketing goals of any kind
❦ We do not amplify sensational stories, use clickbait copy, or share inciteful content
❦ We do not collect data that isn’t provided with your express consent or absolutely necessary
❦ We do not monetise our content through the use of any advertising
❦ We moderate any engagement you make with us, which means we may delete your comments if we consider them to be against our Ethical Principles.
FlowerFolio therefore uses social media to reach a wider audience, in the hopes that we can showcase human lives, lived offline and online, with integrity, and thus lived well.
Last updated September 2020.