Business and Social Media

I just read a great article in the June/July 2010 CA Magazine issue.  You can read it too: "Social Equity" by Gilles Lajoie.

The article talks about businesses leveraging off social media to connect with their community and their consumers.  It draws an interesting parallel between how businesses are reacting to social media and how they reacted when Internet-based commerce first started out.  I wanted to share with you a few highlights from it that I found interesting.

My favourite idea in the article is having an "internal" blog amongst your company.  It serves as a team building tool.  It can connect corporate teams in many locations for national and multi-national enterprises.  It refers to an example of how IBM uses social media to allow employees to learn more about the IBM team worldwide.

The article also suggests 10 Commandments of Social Media.  My favourites:
4. Thou shalt say something of substance, and
7. Thou shalt learn to spell
(P.26, CA Magazine, June/July 2010) Read the full article to get the full picture.

In all honesty, I need to work on #1. though: Thou shalt not be a narcissist.  This post is a step in the right direction!

I suggested the idea of a blog to my firm months ago, before Christmas.  However, it is a lot of work to build a professional blog and to constantly publish relevant content.  It would be a time sink for someone, for sure.  Everything has its cost and benefit decisions though.  I hadn't thought of an internal blog.  I think that would be fantastic!  There would be less pressure to produce content and we could make it like an "Ask an Expert" type-thing for internal frequently asked questions.  Those people in the firm who are frequently asked the same thing could just blog about the subject to save them being asked again in the future.  (There are about 4 or 5 of us.)  Blog posts can be edited anytime, so when information changes, the post can be updated.  (Okay, so some of this suggestion is selfish.  I always wanted to be a writer!)

Everywhere I look, I am bombarded with social media invites and promotions.  Of course businesses would want to get in on the picture.  Businesses have to go where the business is!  I guess I never actually clearly thought about it before reading this article though.  It was enlightening to me.  Read it!  What did you think?

SOURCE: http://www.camagazine.com/archives/print-edition/2010/june-july/features/camagazine38246.aspx

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