I work in IT, what do I need social media for?

If you work for a company in the technology industry, then you are automatically a thought leader/ subject matter expert/ one smart cookie. Whether you work on the core product or you run the network, you can help your company be seen as having smart people, who know their tech. You can do this by blogging, adding original IT content to SlideShare or YouTube.  Even getting out to developer forums like Dzone or answering  questions on Quora all helps to bring positive attention to your brand.

Source: mrsparks

Digging in further, if you work for a company that supplies any product or service via the internet, you’d better be prepared to air your dirty laundry.  Customers want to know how their video streaming service delivers their content.  They want to know why their phone service stopped working for 30 minutes.  They need an explanation for why an outage in Singapore affected their service in California.  Why?  They need reassurance that your company has smart people that are working hard on the problem to minimize the chance of it ever happening again.

“Wait a minute,” you say. “I work in IT for a pharmaceutical (or food manufacturer, law firm, crane operator, etc.) what do I need social media for?” Well, at the very least, you should be using it to get the latest and greatest information in your field.  You can follow peers on Twitter with similar interests. Find opinions from bloggers on that vendor you are thinking about using. Find “how tos” in SlideShare that walk you through a process in an engaging way.

All of that should be a no-brainer.  But here’s the kicker.  You should also blog just like the folks in the tech company.  Just because your product isn’t classified as belonging to the technology industry, doesn’t mean that you aren’t a technology company.  Every company relies in some way on technology to connect with their end users.  Demonstrating to the world on blogging and social networking sites that you are using the latest and greatest approaches can make your company look smart.

Source: infrogmation

Times are changing. Are you going to buy from the company that has no connection with you other than at the point of sale? Or are you going to buy from the company that has their smartest, tech savvy employees active in social media and demonstrating daily that they are at the height of technology?

I thought so.

Time to step up to the keyboard, touchpad or webcam and start telling the world about your passion and expertise in IT.