Business is waking up to the transformative impacts that a hyper-empowered, hyper-connected and hyper-informed social mediascape is having on many aspects of the way they operate. This is exciting. This is an opportunity for every company to do things better than before. We as corporations can all be less evil and even be more profitable than before. But some things have to change, and some of those changes may cause pain and opposition from some inefficient parts of your company that are now under threat. This is a good thing.

As indiviguals - we are more connected than ever before, we have more access to more information than ever before and the information we have access to is unshackled from the time constraints of past mass media and information delivery systems. Combine an exponential growth in new information with powerful and easy to use search, archiving and sharing technologies - we are now in a world where every conversation ever had online is now easily accessible and distributable and will be available for all of the future for anyone to review and share. This means we need to care what people say about us online. 

To this end, think of your customers, partners and suppliers as your new media outlets. They are your salespeople, your marketers, your researchers, your product developers, your spokespeople, your customer support and not suprisingly your biggest critics. They are watching you and your actions and talking about you online with their friends, collegues and strangers in this public, open, searchable, shareable and archived forum. You need to engage with them in an open conversation online. If you don't your competitors will.

Despite this ultimately being an enterprise wide transformation - specific business departments have a great opportunity for quick wins - including:

Seizing the opporunity for these departments requires a bunch of new processes and systems that they have not had before. That is ok, there are companies, consultants, products and services who are here to help. So what should you be looking for?

Stay tuned for future blog posts with specific, relavant and actionable information to you to use within your company. You can subscribe by email in the sidebar.

Any feedback? Please leave a suggestion in the sidebar