Social Media Goes Corporate ... 140 Characters at a Time

Social media has opened a new frontier for corporations seeking to build their brand and meet their customers’ needs. But taking the social media party that’s been made popular by friends and families and applying it to the corporation needs to be done with a transparency that doesn’t fit cleanly into the traditional corporate paradigm.

The etiquette of a casual, party-like conversation where attendees roam from conversation to conversation meeting new people and exchanging ideas and opinions doesn’t always mix well with the traditional corporate structure and protocol of human resource departments, PR firms, IT departments and corporate communications. For years, companies have succeeded in managing well crafted messages in a scheduled monologue spoken directly to their customers (aka the audience). Now, companies are in a dialogue.

To succeed, they need to be the courteous host of their own party as Josh Bancroft so well describes it. They need to be the nice host who provides the location, sends out the invitations, encourages interesting conversation, and takes care of the messy issues and unruly attendees. Mostly it’s about listening and not talking too much – just like real space.

As the telecom industry moves its branding, communications and customer relationships to the social media domain we are faced with several paradigm shifting questions not the least of which is, “Who really owns the conversation of your company?” Companies that nurture their company’s conversation and keep their party fun will attract the big crowds and will succeed.

And the pace of change seems frenetic where the popularity of sites such as Twitter can more than double every 30 days and new social media apps seem to pop up weekly. The low barriers required to launch online technology start-ups and the ubiquity of Internet access combine to make fertile ground for social media popularity and innovation. A recent Oregonian article highlights this trend in Portland, Ore., and blogs such as fastwonder post multiple entries daily about the latest social media app or spotlight the latest social media faux pas.

Listen up corporate America, your audience is talking. Party on.

Post comments on your ideas for how a business-to-business telecom can succeed in hosting its own social media conversation.

John Nee is vice president of corporate communications at Integra Telecom. Prior to joining Integra in 2000, Nee held management positions with Sequent Computer Systems (now IBM) and Creativepro.com, where he managed sales, strategic partnerships, application services development and marketing.

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