We’ve created a Frankenstein known as real time business. In today’s world, social media has changed the landscape of how consumers interact with and affect companies. Amber Naslund, author of the book “The NOW Revolution,” helped explain how a business can adapt to this new world by becoming faster, smarter and more social.  Here’s a breakdown of how to do so:

Objective I: Faster

Amber explained that everybody on the web feels the demand of speed and that demand is amplified thousands of times now. We don’t wait around for information like we used to. In order to deal with this dilemma, companies need to build a new bedrock – a cultural foundation within the corporation that is shared and believed by all employees. Having a larger force of your employees out there helps customers get the answers they want and need quicker. She explained how some companies are scared to put the power of social media in their employees hands because they don’t trust what they will say. But according to Naslund, this means that the company has a hiring problem, not a social media problem.

Objective II: Smarter

Amber explained how although some companies are doing social media, they only respond to positive sentiment and ignore the negative complaints.  As an analogy, she brought up the idea of customer service centers and explained that in those situations, we wouldn’t hang up on someone for complaining – an idea that should be transferred to the world of social media.

Smart companies, she stated, have to make these complaints work for them. An example of this is @DellCares, who created a Twitter account that takes customer complaints and responds to them via social media.

Objective III: More Social

Even if a company transitions to just answering complaints and apologizing, they’d be making progress in social media. However, companies that really want to be a part of the NOW revolution need to engage in and create conversations.

Amber posted a picture of what she called the Humanization Highway.  This highway showed the transitions that a company needs to take to really own their brand in the social space:

Ignoring →  Listening → Responding → Participating → Storytelling

Companies need to also communicate in helpful, interesting, and human ways. An example of this is Subway and their spokesperson Jared. The brand created a memorable story that stood out in viewers’ minds and left a lasting impression on customers – far more than any $5 footlong could.

To conclude the breakout session, Amber emphasized that social media is a hard skill, and with more companies demanding employees know how to use social sites like Facebook and Twitter, it’s a job that can’t be handed off to the intern or tacked onto someone else’s job.

Maurice Rahmey is a student at Boston University studying public relations and business. He’s a member of BU’s Public Relations Student Society of America, an avid blogger at mrahmey.wordpress.com and a prolific tweeter (@mrahmey).

Tags: Radian6 Social 2011, Social Media