Keep Social Media – Social

Let’s face it, social media has hit the big time. I recently read a report that said close to 80% of the Fortune 100 are engaging in some sort of social media strategy. However, the danger with social media going corporate is sterilization. There’s so much money/equity at stake that the people at the top take very restrictive stance on social media. Employees are told to get on twitter but only to follow others or broadcast press releases. Any socialization or interaction on these sites is frowned upon. While I understand the thought process, I tend to think that people join Twitter and Facebook and YouTube to be interactively involved. If your account serves only as a one-way mechanism to ‘blast’ consumers with content, it’s very possible that either a) users will quickly learn to filter out your content or b) one of your competitors will be happy to interact with them about your product AND theirs.

Think of all the great insights we would miss if we told our children to look and listen but never talk.