Social Media: The Corporate Ship Has Sailed

Social Media has grown mature.  It’s the future of media, public relations and marketing, and that future is now.

The longer your business waits to implement Social Media, the more difficult it will be to catch up later.

Businesses of all sizes recognize the unique opportunities and benefits from Social Media.

It goes beyond marketing, branding and public relations.  If you’re not on board, your customers will want to know why.

Plan a Social Media strategy now.

Some companies will rely on internal resources to support their Social Media efforts.  Many seek outside assistance to get the most out of this new medium in the shortest period of time possible.

Here are examples of companies finding their place in Social Media.

Cisco uses Social Media for new product releases.

This year in what they coined, “market conditioning,” Cisco used industry blogs to crowd-source opinion and allay concerns of business partners prior to a new product release.

They used their own blogs to pre-release information about new products, and posted video to respond to blog visitor comments. Cisco attracted considerable product interest, had tens of thousands of interactions with clients, and was prepared with a well-accepted message upon the actual product launch.

The result was an extreme amount of near universal positive sentiment in the press.

Dell attributes $3 Million in sales to their @DellOutlet discount Tweets.

An early adopter of Social Media, Dell continues to use this platforms to innovate.  They have a broad approach that includes blogs, Twitter, Facebook  and more.

Harris & Moure, a mid-size Seattle law firm, has realized great strides via their China Law Blog.

It’s greatly increased their visibility, credibility and press, which in turn has brought more leads and clients.

IBM remains a leader in Social Media.

Their recently published social media guidelines, helps inform and inspire employee participation.  IBM encourages their people to blog about every aspect of the business.

Intuit, Quicken’s manufacturer, is an award-winning Social Media front runner.

Their online communities excel in helping businesses dialogue with each other and Intuit.  They use crowd sourcing and collaboration between employees and clients to innovate their products and services.

Southwest Airlines is an example of excellence in corporate blogging.

Topics covered by their employees are interesting, wide-spread, and include news, videos and photos.  Paula Berg, spokesperson for SWA’a says of their Social Media group, “It’s become a place to make and break news; a place to tell the rest of the story when the mainstream media doesn’t have the time or space to do it; a virtual focus group, and a place to get immediate feedback.”

Whole Foods Markets blogs to the tune of over 1 million visitors monthly.

More recently they have come to Tweet, use Flickr and Facebook.  If you follow or talk about them on Twitter, you could win a number of gifts.  The blog is engaging and they get interesting comments too.  Whole Foods has a deep commitment to Social Media and participates locally and at the corporate level.

Conclusion

Companies taking social media seriously have developed a strategy and are moving with rapid deployment through dedication of appropriate resources.  Their success is based on having enlisted support within their organization at multiple levels, from top management down.

Do the same for your business, and don’t miss the boat before it sails.