Episode 2: The Rise of the Blogosphere - What Now?

My series on brands use of social media continued early this morning with Sherry Heyl, Chief Strategy Officer of Concept Hub, Inc..  Despite our pre-dawn scratchy voices, Sherry and I had a lively discussion about brand marketers past love/hate affair with the blogosphere and the pros and cons of corporate blogging.  Sherry highlighted a number of solid industry best practices along with some poking at my geekiness (which must have been the caffeine talking).  Throughout our conversation, Sherry emphasized several points on the importance of having an overall social media culture and strategy, which blogs and podcasts play a defined role.  I’m still waking up, but managed to capture a few of them here:

Social media is an evolution, not an “add-on” – it needs to become part of all the various functions of a company.  Blogs are not just marketing’s job, or the public relations team’s job – they are an extension of the employee’s, the leadership’s, the brand’s culture to their consumers and the marketplace as a whole.

You need to be a good listener, first – focus on creating and enabling a culture of listeners in your company.  Blogs are a terrific source for identifying frustrations and significant problems that go beyond 140 characters.  Someone has taking the time to write one or more posts about a complaint or need, can offer a richer insight into the customer/marketplace.  The comments on that post, offer even more insights, which can be used to educate and inform employees on how to serve customers and ultimately the community better through all social media tools.

No one is perfect, not you and certainly not your blog – routing posts through a 3-day review and approval cycle feels less authentic and inhibits a regular dialogue with the community.  Allow for spontaneity in the process - it’s okay to show your “humanness”.

You can listen to the full podcast episode here. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/MichelleBatten_iMediaWorks

Also, you check out Sherry’s in-depth recap summary on her blog at Concept Hub, Inc.

Next week, we’ll continue with “PART 3: The Social Media Promised Land –MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn”, my guest will be Peter Fasano (@pfasano) of Mass+Logic and my partner in the Atlanta Chapter of The Social Media Club.  Date and time to be announced via my Twitter account (@iMWConnect).  Feel to send us questions in advance of the show and listen in live on BlogTalk Radio.