Third Tuesday: Michelle Kostya

From humble beginnings to keeping in touch through the palm of your hands, social media is defined as media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media is used to connect, share, and express our personal brands.

Few companies have capitalized on this phenomenon like Research In Motion (RIM) has. What makes RIM stand a cut above is not that they use social media but how they use it. Without insight, social media can just be another bland platform(s) draining away resources.

Michelle Kostya joined us for the second Third Tuesday on Dec. 6 at The Exchange Pub in Ottawa, to talk on RIM’s approach to social media.

Michelle touched on several key points in terms of communicating, listening, engaging, and breaking down the wall that has long stood between consumers and businesses. The Ottawa native defines social media as a hybrid between marketing and customer service in respect to how a business can better understand and gauge their audience. She went on to say social media diminishes our differences and primes consumers and businesses to engage with one another to achieve common goals.

What made RIM an interesting case was how, starting out as a company, they primarily catered to enterprise. Then came the wave of new Blackberry users who weren’t using the technology for business purposes anymore.

RIM used to connect with enterprise clients through IT technicians, but with the new wave, they needed to find a vehicle to communicate to clients on a much simpler level. Through pilot projects, they found a feasible means of connecting and supporting their new community: social media.

Michelle concluded the night with the following parting messages which anyone can apply to their business blueprint: • Pilot first- Always check feasibility of any project before wasting resources such as people, time, money. • Build partners both internally and externally- Support your loyal fans but don’t forget there’s always room to expand. Once credible partners are established, they in turn, can change naysayers into followers. • Prepare to be successful beyond your wildest dreams- A small company founded by a university dropout, RIM lived contract to contract in their early years before becoming the telecommunication giant they are today ( a little dated ...I know, this is an older article!). For more information: * Michelle Kostya on LinkedIn: http://ca.linkedin.com/in/michellekostya * To learn more about RIM visit http://www.rim.com/company/

#RIM #SocialMedia #Blackberry #CustomerService #CorporateCommunications #Media