Yesterday's post discussed the power of simple and elegant communications to explain complex ideas. A reader sent me a description of corporate social media that brilliantly distilled the whole subject down to four words, as shown below:
"Listen. Learn. Communicate. Engage."
(The explanations that follow are mine.)
Listen A corporation must first listen to the social media stream, learn the differences between Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, blogging, etc. in terms of participants and messages, follow the competition to see what they are doing in social media and what their message is, and determine whether your target customer is participating and where.
Learn Social media is in large part about learning (about a wide range of personal and professional subjects), which explains why it has greater credibility than traditional media. A company needs to understand how its subject matter is presented in social media, what the hot topics are and why, what are the most popular tags on Twitter and what search terms dominate a particular industry or segment.
Communicate Everybody will soon be using social media for business purposes. The key is in picking the proper channels to communicate to customers and prospects.
Engage Social media is about the two way exchange of information, in contrast with traditional media which is a one-way "push" model. One must expect feedback and dialogue and be prepared to constructively and honestly participate 24/7. Purely crass commercialism is insufficient and not in keeping with the real objectives of a firm. The company image will in large part be shaped by the quality and responsiveness of the exchange of information.
The four words--Listen. Learn. Communicate. Engage.--said it much more simply and elegantly than I did, but I did not want to one up Hemingway.
Note: The four words were derived from this post by Lee Odden.
