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Corporate social media gets proactive

June 25, 2009 1:16am
by David Gelles

Big companies have been using social media to good effect for some time now. Ford used Twitter to extinguish a public relations crisis. Dell combs the blogosphere looking for disgruntled customers, then reaches out to make amends.

These examples, like most uses of corporate social media, are reactive. Companies, it seems, are willing to engage with their customers, but only once they’ve become upset.

Yet as sophisticated communications teams get savvier with social media, some companies are getting proactive.

Take Cisco. As it geared up for a March launch of its new Unified Computing System, it harnessed social media to drum up interest in the new product, and test and refine its messaging.

Starting in January, Cisco’s social media team, led by Jeanette Gibson, began discussing the new UCS product on select industry blogs. The goal was to get a sense of how customers, analysts and journalists would handle the news, then refine their releases.

Ms Gibson and her team anticipated that analysts might worry that the UCS would pit Cisco against some of its partners, so in back-and-forths with analysts and industry insiders, they tinkered with the language to ameliorate such concerns.

The company also tapped its existing social media networks. Padmasree Warrior, Cisco’s charismatic chief technology officer, has more than 600,000 followers on Twitter, and a devoted following when she blogs. In late January Ms Warrior blogged about UCS, giving a rough sketch of what was in store. Then in early February, Ms Warrior posted a video responding to the 45 comments on her original post.

By the time the Unified Computing System launched, Cisco had drummed up considerable interest in the new product. It had had more than 53,000 interactions with customers, and honed its message to near perfection. “It’s about anticipating the issue, getting feedback from customers, then adjusting our message,” said Ms Gibson.

All this advance work paid off, says Ms Gibson. Upon the official launch, the UCS was met with wide applause. The new product attracted enormous media attention, and 98 per cent of the stories were positive, according to the company.

Ms Gibson says the effort was a success, and Cisco will be incorporating the strategy in the future. “The idea of using social media for market conditioning is going to inform our launches going forward,” she said.

But it is not clear that Cisco’s preparatory social media efforts alone were responsible for the successful launch.  Cisco’s entry into the server market was a newsworthy event, and bound to get coverage. The FT correspondent who covered the UCS launch said he was unswayed by any advanced messaging. Moreover, good press alone is no guarantee of a product’s success.

Still, other large companies would be wise to follow Cisco’s lead. Social media can be preventative medicine, too, and not just a Band Aid.

June 25, 2009 1:16am in Digital media | Comment

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