1. Trend Report four shifts social media is causing in business
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2. “What can businesses do to transition and succeed in this new era?”
Social Media, New Challenge and Opportunity
Gone are the days
when companies could rely on carefully crafted press releases or flashy ad campaigns to communicate with their customers
The rules are changed
people today demand a more honest and direct relationship with the companies with which they do business
Companies now face a clear choice:
wall themselves in and become increasingly controlled and hidden
use social media and other means to reveal their human side, welcome transparency, and forge new relationships with their customers
“What can businesses do to transition and succeed in this new era?”

3. four shifts social media is causing in business
1. From “Trying to Sell” to “Making Connections”
In order to change the context of customer relationships from trying to sell to seeking to engage and connect with customers, companies need to use various means, including sites like Facebook and Twitter, to socially interact with people.
Jeff Swartz, who is the President and CEO of the Timberland Company, is a great example of this. Swartz uses his Twitter account to show his personality by tweeting about his life and the social issues he is passionate about, rather than the shoes his company makes.
Lesson: Release fewer “official statements” and more personal ones that help you make a connection to your customers and audience.

4. four shifts social media is causing in business
2. From “Large Campaigns” to “Small Acts”
In the past, if we had a very bad or very good experience with a company, it could take days or weeks to tell all of our friends and relatives about it. Today, in a matter of minutes, we can let all our friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter know about what happened. When every customer experience can be easily and widely broadcast, small issues become super important.
Loic Le Meur, CEO of startup software company Seesmic, once told me that one of the most important jobs of a CEO today is to hear what people are saying about the company’s product across social media channels, and to respond to them directly.
Bigger companies, such as Southwest Airlines and Comcast are using Twitter in the same way, making sure customers’ concerns are addressed. Because bad experiences are broadcast just as fast and just as easily as the good, it pays for companies to pay attention to the one-on-one customer relationships forged via social media.
Lesson: Instead of only relying on big campaigns, make authentic, helpful relationships and communication the new campaign.

5. four shifts social media is causing in business
3. From “Controlling Our Image” to “Being Ourselves”
Looking at the most popular companies in the era of social media, and you’ll generally find the ones that give their employees freedom to be themselves in online spaces. The goal should no longer be to create a very controlled and polished image that everyone in a company tries to reinforce, but rather to give employees the means necessary to be human beings that can put a friendly face on the corporation.
John Nack, the Principal Product Manager for Photoshop at Adobe, offers a great example. Adobe is a company that smartly encourages and provides the means for their employees to blog, and anyone who reads Nack’s blog will notice that Adobe doesn’t put many restrictions on what people write about. Nack’s blog is focused almost exclusively on his area of interest — graphic design and photo manipulation — but he doesn’t post solely about Adobe products
Lesson: Forget the unified company image, give staff the freedom to be themselves, and trust that the relationships that they build will help the company in the long run.

6. four shifts social media is causing in business
4. From “Hard to Reach” to “Available Everywhere”
To engage with customers, it is no longer enough to have an address and customer service number on one’s website. Today, people want to interact with and engage businesses via their chosen means of communication, whether that is Twitter, Facebook, discussion forums, or a feedback site like Get Satisfaction
Companies like Dell, for example, have fully embraced multiple channels of support. Their community site lists all the ways customers can connect with them through Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, forums, blogs, , and more. Dell wants people to be able to connect with them through whatever channel is most comfortable.
Lesson: Rather than expect customers to communicate through your chosen means, allow them to do so through their chosen means.

7. Conclusion the New Business Paradigm in the Age of Social Media
In this new era of social media, companies are asked to be increasingly transparent and personal. Of course, traditional advertising and press releases will still have their place, but social sites such as Twitter and Facebook allow a whole new type of communication to take place that has previously been unknown to most businesses. Possibly more important for businesses than getting a large number of followers on social media sites, is following through on the opportunity to forge more genuine and direct connections with their customers.
Businesses who choose not to adapt to the new culture will be at an increasing disadvantage, as their customers slowly build personal relationships with their competitors. We are now in the age of open communication, engaged dialogue, and transparency, and business success may now have less to do with the size of ad budgets, but on the quality of interactions with customers.

8. Thank you