Corporate social media accounts—do or don’t?

For the longest time my company, LexBlog didn’t have its own Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn pages. This may seem unexpected as it it seems a given for companies these days to have corporate social media pages and accounts—especially for a company with deep roots in and passion for social media.

So why no presence then?

No, we weren’t try to be like Apple who has also held out on the social media front (maybe they’re just too cool for social?), instead it’s that we at LexBlog believe deeply that participating in social media is a personal relationship-building act. So how can one build a relationship or conduct a conversation with a corporate facade?

Get social is one of our core values. We strongly encourage every team-member to personally engage and grow their own presence via their own social channels. This not only helps them create stronger online presence for themselves, but also builds crucial relationships with clients and prospects, which supports the business.

In light of this point of view, corporate social sites have always seemed at best impersonal and at worst promotional in nature—two attributes that are about as far from our corporate values as we could get.

So why did we do it anyway? There are 3 solid reasons

1. People are  looking for us – We don’t want to miss the opportunity to hear about it if a client wants to tweet about us or mention us on Facebook. Without a corporate account, there would be no way to keep track of that or even know about it. In the end we felt this was a disservice to our clients and to ourselves.

2. Social media provides a brand-building channel that can’t be ignored – Our brand values are about being helpful and fun. Our social media channels are a way to support both those values in a non-intrusive way. I don’t believe social media is a “lead generation” channel, but it is a communications channel that works well for supporting our clients and friends with helpful information they can use in their daily lives. Twitter, Google+ and Linked in are particularly good channels for this type of information. This supports our brand and provides value.

3. Social media provides a place to show off our amazing culture and internal workings. A Facebooke page offers a look into what our team is doing—a peek behind the curtain into the how our company actually operates. This gives clients, prospects and potential employees a chance to see what we are like as people and how much we love what we do. When we’re having fun, it makes us more appealing to work with—I mean who wouldn’t want to work with a bunch of super fun people?

Now just because you have corporate social accounts, that doesn’t mean individual team-members are off the hook. The more employees who engage and network with clients on social media, the stronger your company or firm will be.

Clients stay clients because they feel they have good relationships with the people behind the company. So the best social policy truly is to Get Social.

PS: If you’d like to connect with LexBlog on social media—we’d love to see you there. We’re starting slowly: Twitter: @LexBlog, Facebook