Chris Heuer points out how an enterprise wiki building company, Social Text, has in its product plan that their product will be produced in conjunction with its customers. This is a change from business plans of old. Heuer is eye-opening in this presentation. Why? Because the net result of such a product development paradigm over the long term, is happier clients, a more innovative future, and products that are driven by demand.

I realize in the busy days of a corporate marketing exec, having been one, that you want a turn-key solution. But in this social media landscape, there is no template formula. There are tools that make the job of working within the social media space efficient, but there is no quick fix for engaging in conversation. That takes time.

Marshall Kirkpatrick talked about podcasting as being a medium that will continue to grow. “My dog loves podcasts,” he exclaims. No he doesn’t have smarter dogs that listen to them (or do you Marshall?). He just listens to podcasts while walking the dog.

Audio is the medium that gives you time to think and the convenience of being passive. It’s a beautiful thing for communicating in a variety of circumstances.

Paul Dunay, on the panel about how to integrate social media into your marketing mix, focused on wikis and has some keys to look for. I’m paraphrasing here; Paul, clarify in comments if you need to.

• It should be two-way dialogue
• Shared opinions are good things
• Wikis can help engage early adopters and encourage thought leadership
• Starting internally with a wiki can build a foundation for your external-facing social media tactics
• Bring in IT at the beginning of the project discussion to get their buy in and expertise

Maggie Fox, on the same panel as Dunay, highlighted Mozilla’s launch of Firefox. Mozilla leveraged its users, which exponentially expanded the marketing department by essentially creating a suggestion box that generated both good ideas and advocates for the product — a winning combination for Firefox. It went from 0 percent market share in 2004 to more than 35 percent market share in September 2007.

The panel also included Tom Gerace, CEO of Gather.com, and Andy Beal, contributor to the Marketing Pilgrim blog.

As I listened to this excellent panel, it struck me that there are several parallels between being a corporate marketer and the job of communications strategy for a political candidate or public policy initiative.

Social media, by definition, requires:

• Listening to constituents (or customers or prospects)
• Responding (or not) to critics
• Communicating and building supporters
• Taking into consideration the larger environment in which the company and its communications initiatives exist

I remember when I was in Washington, D.C., as press secretary for the Republican National Committee. The radar was always listening for critics, and the supply lines were always full of talking points to funnel the grassroots support network.

Today’s social media campaign should go through a similar process of thoughtful messaging and coalition (community) building, with an abundant portion of patience to listen, and sensitivity to provide timely and responsible responses.

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