July 20, 2010

Adventures in taking a Fortune 500 social

My client, Norfolk Southern Corporation, recently announced it is actively engaging with stakeholders on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, as well as offering RSS feeds and links to all its social media pages via the corporate home page. While this may not seem like news relative to what consumer businesses have been doing for years, this is unprecedented in the railroad industry and for many other Fortune 500 companies in the B2B sector.

I have been consulting with Norfolk Southern for several years on developing their social media communications strategy. It’s taken a lot of training to get the corporate communications department on board. I put together several social media 101 presentations and training sessions with along with Amber Karnes of Chop Chop Design (Norfolk Southern’s Webmaster at the time).

Shortly after, the company put together a New Media Team, composed of employees across the company to advise the company’s social media and new media strategies. Karnes and I offered more training sessions and presentations, and with the support of the New Media Team, launched these social media initiatives.

Our biggest challenge was not gaining the buy-in from management (the widespread adoption of Facebook and Twitter eventually made that case for us), but ensuring the legal department there would be no problems. The best way to handle that obstacle was to approach social media cautiously and show success through baby steps. For example, Norfolk Southern’s first YouTube video was a 30-second commercial that had aired nationwide on television. Once the lawyers could see there was little need for concern, we began slowly posting more content.

Check out Norfolk Southern’s social media profiles, for a first-rate example of how social media can work for a large B2B organization. The Thoroughbred of Transportation is taking the lead on social media engagement in the freight rail transportation industry. So far, NS has more than 9,000 fans on Facebook, more than any other railroad. We’re engaging with rail fans across the country, and this is just the beginning as we are continuing to set forth a strategy to enhance our community outreach. In fact, Norfolk Southern has recently added a position to the Corporate Communications department that handles Community Outreach, both online and offline. I look forward to sharing more as Norfolk Southern continues engaging stakeholders online.

Tags: b2b, clients, facebook, Flickr, Norfolk Southern, social media, Twitter, YouTube
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March 9, 2009

Twittles: Taste the social marketing rainbow

I’m loving the new Skittles Web site. Launched last week, it’s simply a rotating look at the live Skittles entries on social media sites, such as Flickr, Wikipedia and Twitter. It certainly generated a lot of buzz for Skittles in the last week on Twitter. With a completely user-generated website, Skittles gets kudos for learning how to relinquish control. Continue Reading…

Tags: best practice, Flickr, redesign, social media, Twitter, user-generated content, Wikipedia
Posted in Best Practices, PR Tactics, Web/Tech | No Comments »

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