Those 20-somethings won’t join companies that ban Facebook on company time. Executives that don’t allow texting during a meeting are considered out of touch. Companies that don’t blog have missed out on the conversation that is the marketplace (their customers, prospects, and even competitors).

Wake up! It’s a new world.

Web 2.0 and social media are here to stay. These tools, technologies, features and Web platforms have forever changed user behavior online, as well as user expectations of the companies they purchase from. It is important for companies to understand and participate in this new Web.

Social media offers new opportunities to engage customers directly, influence the marketplace, increase brand awareness and affinity, build a better customer experience, and collect market intelligence. Now, why would you want to ignore that?

Learn and Apply

Today user-generated content (UGC) in blogs, podcasts, wikis, social networks, communities, virtual worlds, product reviews/comments, and videos is fast becoming the bulk of content on the Web. No longer can corporate websites, branding activities, and mainstream press programs alone drive the conversation online.

The vast amount of information created by customers, prospects, and industry bloggers through these new media vehicles can help employees gain a better grasp of trends, customer sentiment, competitor activities and product and service requirements. So encourage all of your employees to get online and learn!

In addition, employees can enhance and extend the company’s customer experience by creating and distributing content that adds value, and learning from and applying information created by external audiences. In the old-fashioned, hierarchical workplace, executives want absolute control over information going out of the company. That’s understandable assuming there are some crown jewels to protect.

But the wholesale rejection of employee blogging or interacting with social media as a part of their job is a grave error in judgment. The opportunity cost to a company can be huge. To meet the needs of both sides, there must be rules in place that guide employees through their online interactions.

Responsible Participation

Social media interactions and blogging by employees should be designed to build relationships with customers, partners, and bloggers, attract prospects, initiate or add value to the public discourse and embrace outside interaction. Employees can be encouraged to interact responsibly on social media such as blogs, wikis and through comments.

Getting involved in social media should be the choice of each employee. Anyone with a passion or interest should be encouraged to create a blog or participate in a group blog. Start with internal blogs to get a feel for how it works. And make sure you have written social media guidelines that every employee reads in advance. I’ve written in the past about specific guidelines that help employees make good decisions.

It’s critical at this point that you don’t let fear of the unknown hold you back. It’s okay to take baby steps. At least you’ll be walking in the right direction.

Popularity: 11% [?]

What is the cost of implementing social networking, and how do we measure success? Most executives want to know. A more important question is what is the cost of not doing social networking?

Setting up a site where your customers can talk to each other provides amazing value. You set up the platform, they do the work. Customers create a high value data source that keeps them coming back and attracts others to the site.

Social sites and blogs have turned out to be a highly effective early warning system. Companies are learning of problems they didn’t know they had and fixing them much more quickly. The biggest fear I hear from executives is that customers will rant about the problems we already know we have, but that take time to fix.

So these customers are ranting privately now and trying to figure out how not to use your product or service. They’re talking to your competitors instead of talking to other customers and the company trying to help solve these issues. If you know what your problems are, it’s likely the marketplace knows them too. Airing the issue and having a real, personal conversation with your audience about what you’re doing to fix these problems can keep customers from running away from you. It can build loyalty.

Why wait for your competitors to beat you to the punch and treat customers better.

Popularity: 31% [?]

Fortune 500 company CEOs automatically have an audience of customers, competitors, shareholders, Wall Street analysts, press and so on. Starting a blog is more about strategy and voice, than about marketing and attracting readers. For small company CEOs it’s a different story. Why blog every day if no one is reading it?

Blogging is a live, ongoing conversation which completely changes the dynamic between a CEO and customers. It’s virtually impossible to interact regularly with every customer, but a blog that enables comments, polling, and blog post ratings, encourages customers and prospects to offer an opinion. These interactions help develop a relationship, and they are filled with interesting data points which often drive CEOs to blog even more.

Blogs inform in a way we can only partially control. A CEO’s personality comes across as they write. And readers comment adding to the conversation. A small company CEO blog is all about building an audience to increase your sphere of influence. So marketing your blog is as important as writing your blog.

Here are some simple ways to market your blog:

1. Make sure your blog is listed in all relevant blog listings, and submitted to blog search sites
2. Add tags that describe your blog so that it pops up in search results
3. Focus your blog on a subject or dynamic that is higher level than your products or services to attract a broader audience
4. Invite guest bloggers or interview interesting personalities to spice up your blog
5. Get a blidget from Widgetbox to syndicate your blog as a widget so others can run it on their website, blog, or desktop
6. Note your blog on your email signature, text message signature, business cards, and on your website
7. Refer to your blog in customer meetings, at conferences, and in speeches
8. When used as a resource by the press, reference you blog along with your title and contact information

Popularity: 23% [?]