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Embarq, a Fortune 500 telecommunications company, had a strategic mission to establish its own identity after it broke away from Sprint and a tactical objective to convert dial-up internet customers to subscribe to high-speed. They used a creative YouTube approach combined with other integrated marketing for the high-speed conversion, and embarked on a company-wide adoption of social media to contribute to its strategic goals.

This was not a pilot project, nor isolated to a single department. Embarq, and its social media early adopter team, understood any move into social media with these objectives would touch every aspect of the company. Once the team accepted the mission, it became clear this would be a long effort that included, education, adoption by senior management, acceptance of new tasks by individuals responsible for executing participation on social media, and agreement on new metrics incorporated with standard measurements that would allow the company’s culture to become more social.

In some ways, when social media is taken on by the marketing team, it can be viewed as a tactic limited to marketing. This narrow view may work for a company to test the social media waters, however, it may also be a pigeon hole from which social media and its practitioners may never emerge further in the company.

To implement social media the way Embarq as done is to accept that social media is horizontal across a company impacting customer service, sales, product development, legal, investor relations, among other functions within a company as large as Embarq.

In my series “Soundbites from the Road” we talk to Zena Weist, Interactive Brand Strategist at Embarq and on of the social media team members. They presented a session at NewComm Forum, a conference produced by the Society for New Communications Research, about the two year experience implementing social media at Embarq. Zena and I discussed the need to get buy-in from all departments that may be impacted in a horizontal social media program to increase its chances for success.

Embaq Social Media Team Leaders and their Twitter profiles.

Linda O’Neill, Customer Service General Manager, @lindaoneill
Joey Harper, Customer Service Online Outreach Lead, @EMBARQ_Joey
Kevin Cobb, Interactive Brand Marketing Manager, @kevinjcobb
Zena Weist, Interactive Brand Strategy Manager, @zenaweist

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