Twitter Gets Down to Business
The challenge to manage corporate communications via social media in a responsible manner keeps getter tougher. Just when you thought you could leave Twitter to others who had the time to engage in mindless solipsism, you see an article in The Wall St. Journal: Corporate Blogs and “Tweets” Must Keep SEC in Mind.
The redoubtable business source underlines the immersion of Twitter into the Corporate zeitgeist by unequivocally stating: “Social Media Offer Immediacy and Spontaneity to Communications but Risk Running Afoul of Regulations.
Eighty-one Fortune 500 companies sponsor public blogs, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Chevron Corp. and General Motors Corp., according to the Society for New Communications Research. Of those blogs, 23 link to corporate Twitter accounts.
On Thursday, a Johnson & Johnson executive reported for the first time on the health-care giant’s annual meeting via Twitter, which allows users to post “tweets” of as many as 140 characters from devices with Internet access.
A Who’s Who of Corporate Twitterers include:
Best Buy
Safeway
Cisco Systems
Toys ‘R’ Us
Dell
Johnson & Johnson
Wells Fargo
Microsoft
Time Warner
FedEx
New York Life Insurance
McDonald’s
Oracle
Google
Avnet
Amazon.com
CBS
Texas Instruments
EMC
Monsanto
Whole Foods Market
Newell Rubbermaid
Symantec
A whole new lexicon and legalese is emerging to deal with the new reality, and perils, of this new social media.
No, Twitter is no longer the purview of teenagers sharing what block they’re on or movie they’re seeing. Now, we’re advised to ignore it at our own peril.
