Social Media Deployment & Training

Now that I am back home in Boston, I need to collect my thoughts from last week, and take another look at my critique of the cluetrain manifesto.

I had many great conversations discussing the different approaches companies take in implementing and evangelizing social media usage within the enterprise. I think it comes down to a company realizing that employees are going to use social media to engage the rest of the world about their employer just as employees talk about their company now. A company will not be able to control those conversations, however, a company can empower an employee to understand the implications of using social media through social media training.

Employee training is only part of the potential usage of social media by a company. Deploying social media communications strategies within the enterprise range from dedicated resources for monitoring and response across all social media for customers and commentators, to thinking about how individual functions can use social media internally and externally.

To me social media is less about media relations and much more about customer service, product development and engaging in a dialogue with customers and the wider community. Blogger relations pitching should certainly be part of any company’s communications toolkit today. I just think the potential for affecting the internal workings of a company come more from employee social media training; and deploying social media communications strategies for monitoring and responding to customers and commentators throughout social media.