An interesting post from my client at Alterian – Ian Truscott – on the power of being yourself or as a company, letting employees play their part and make up the social face to the company as a whole.

As I commented on the original post, I think “be nice” is a good mantra for the way we behave online and also for life in general but I like my colleague Ged Carroll‘s additional one “be useful”.  Being useful is where all the different “yous” come in – I am assuming you are meaning the “faces” to the company can come from anywhere within the organisation here?

…and they should…..technical people need to be there, customer services, marketing, comms, senior management….

I like the thesis number 84. from the Cluetrain Manifesto as it sums it up perfectly:

“We know some people from your company. They’re pretty cool online. Do you have any more like that you’re hiding? Can they come out and play?”

As people realise the biggest benefit to being online – listening to your customers and being part of their community – is learning intensely valuable info about where you business should be going and what you should be doing better, this will become a no brainer.

Right now there are a huge number of companies that still don’t get it.