Over the course of the past few weeks, we’ve been monitoring several blogs, Indian as well as from across the globe,  to understand the commenting trends and almost everywhere we have come across this phenomenon. It seems that now, with the advent of so many social media platforms, there are a hundred different avenues through which blogs are commented on and discussed, including the blog. A simple tweet on twitter like ‘Read interesting post about wordpress 3.0 by *** and totally disagree’ can trigger a conversation on twitter rather than on the blog. If the blogger would like to be part of this conversation, it becomes her job to track where her story is being shared and discussed and get there as fast as possible with her reasons and opinions to continue the conversation. For instance, this blogpost may be retweeted by 10 different people on twitter, each marking the tweet with his/her thought [which takes the place of the comment] along with the url. In this scenario, it might simply be a better solution to add to the comments box a continuously updating list of mentions on the social web thus allowing you to connect with those who have thoughts about your ideas on their platform rather than bringing them to your blog and expecting them to drop a comment. So if the lack of comments is really getting you down, hang in there! Someone, somewhere is tweeting about you. You just need to find them and engage!

Follow us on @iridiuminter or catch us up on facebook and we’ll keep you posted about more such news.

1. Plan your corporate twitter strategy before taking the plunge. Be clear on your business objectives.

2. Assess your organization’s willingness to twitter. Is your corporate culture open to honest conversations? Are your employees ready to use various social media tools such as blogs and wikis? Is the organizational culture open and honest enough?

3. Focus on the people and not the technology. It’s the people who connect and bring communities alive. So, don’t overlook their preferences. Have a business purpose and brainstorm it with your group. At iridium Interactive, my core marketing and creative team is on a high everyday about exploring new dynamic social media tools for different client needs. We had our share of run-around of getting buried under so many apps. But, we made early mistakes and learned not to get carried away before rolling out any tools. We questioned asked ourselves, “Who will use it?” How can it support or generate useful conversations in the business? How can it give employees better access to leadership and make them more engaged? How can we measure the ROI?”

4. Surrender control and allow access to the employees as equal partners in the communication process. It’s no longer about the push but the pull. This cannot be a standalone tool restricted to only a few people in the organization.

5. Create an Internal Sandbox for your company to allow your employees work around and play with this social media tool. This encourages their acceptance.

6. Create a Twitter Policy before giving access make to clarify and moderate what the employees can say and can’t say. Setting up ground rules while planning the strategy.

7. Do not obsess with numbers from the beginning. Work on the purpose first, have a case and then determine the results. Measurement is key to success, but enter the sandbox first and feel the sand…..play with your Twitter  followers!

So, time to get on-board into Twitter along with your company and get ready to take-off into the social space….or shall I say galaxy. Start with a crisp brainstorming to establish the purpose…fill the white-board, begin engaging your people.

Look out for the next wisdom series tomorrow about the business benefits of using Twitter….keep your 140 on!

Follow us on @iridiuminter or my personal twitter @sbharatam

A presentation was scheduled, as other team people slowly started gathering in the meeting room with their laptops and power cards for her presentation.  A voice hummed in our ear “You all know me as the girl who sat in the corner, taking photographs and writing all the time as a stenographer. I am Purvvi, you are right with double V,  Guys you all do wonders in your projects and celebrate your success. Most of these stories remain untold,  seldom does anybody share this with the entire company.  We have online platform to share these stories on,  we are not used to the blogging culture. But guys believe me the whole globe is blogging. Let start blogging and bring out all the stories, which all of us have, all of them interesting and insightful.”  She continued to explained the proces. At the end of the presentation she said that “let me help you with your first blog keeping posting it to me.” this was comforting as some of us in the room have never written blogs, this reassured us to atleast start writing.. Alas! 20 guys who were present there agreed to post 20 blogs every week….. WOW!!! This is a big commitment. Now most of them started blogging, commenting, thus starting iridium’s blog culture. But do you think they are discussing something technical…noo. They are writing on plans for the next project delivery party.

Inspired by the presentation I would like share with you my first blog, I will catch up with you on other interesting stories happening in and around my company!!