Guest Post from Justin Goldsborough from Sprint. Justin will be presenting at Gravity Summit on 2-25
Justin case you were wondering…I’m getting really tired of answering the question: What department do you work in? Yet when I meet someone new inside or outside Sprint, that question undoubtedly comes up in the first two minutes of conversation without fail, often followed by the trading of business cards.

Dissect any company and you’re going to find silos. We call them departments — corporate communications, marketing, customer service, product development, etc. Talk to the people in those silos and you’ll find more silos. We call them jobs or responsibilities – “I’m responsible for internal communications,” or “I manage customer account issues.”

Silos breed ownership, which breeds control, which leads us down the road of labeling everything and everyone. John Smith isn’t John Smith anymore. He’s the direct mail rep for the southern region. And Sally Jones isn’t Sally Jones. She’s account number 58764.

Does your company have silos? Most do for organizational purposes or to set job expectations for employees. But in my opinion, silos offer more problems than solutions. The companies that win will lose the labels and set one expectation for their employees – engage with people and build relationships. That’s where social media comes in, because social media can be the silo killer if company leaders will let it.

Social media, the silo killer
Social media gives everybody in your company the chance to join the conversation – and that’s a good thing, because that means everyone can positively impact company performance and be a part of “the team.”

The lines between departments and roles are blurring more and more each day thanks to social media (see pic below). No matter what department employees represent, if they are building relationships then they are building trust and that reflects positively on the company’s reputation. Social media makes building these relationships that much easier. You can have a lot more conversations with a lot more people by blogging, joining forums and using Twitter, which I like to call an online networking event.

Basically, people don’t want to be “talked at” anymore, which is what companies have done historically when marketing to customers. They want to be “talked with” and social media makes it easier to continue the conversation and find what value each of us can add to our relationships.

Customers care about solutions, not job titles
As a customer, think about how you want to be treated by the brands you invest in. When you have a problem with or question about a product, you want a solution as fast as possible, right? Social media has given customers the ability to post questions, issues about your company instantaneously (check out Twitter search and type your brand name or look up your company name on Google blog search). Scary huh? Well, it could be, but only if you aren’t listening or can’t react fast. In actuality, you should love when customers blog or tweet about your brand because they’re setting you up to share information that goes way beyond a one on one interaction.

Here’s an example of where silos can make or kill your ability to meet the customer’s expectations. Remember Sally Jones? Of course you do. She doesn’t care where the solution comes from. She just wants her product to work again. But if your company’s silos determine that you have to go to the person who “owns” the product she has or who “owns” online interaction with customers, the end result is that you can’t answer her question. You may be following policy, but all Sally knows is she had to wait for that answer. And that’s the story she’ll tell about your brand.

Now take the same scenario at a company where you’re empowered to use social media to reach out right away and engage Sally. She posts her problem on Twitter and you respond quickly with a solution or to let her know her account will be reviewed. Different experience, different story for Sally to tell. And she’s not the only one who sees your story. Others will view the online interaction, plus Sally is likely to share her positive experience.

(Nobody does online customer outreach better than Frank Eliason, or @comcastcares as he’s know on Twitter.)

Every brand has a story, use social media to tell yours
These silo situations work just the same inside your company walls. Each employee is a brand ambassador with a vested interest in your reputation and access to social networks, whether they’re on Facebook, at church, etc. But are your silos allowing you to arm these ambassadors with the information they need to tell your brand’s story?

That’s the question we asked ourselves at Sprint last summer when we discussed embracing “open communications” and launching an employee blog site called Sprint Space. Employees and leadership had to be willing to share information about company decisions and “the why” behind them. These details are the key component employees will use when they respond to friends, family who ask about the company. In addition, SMEs must be willing to give up control and encourage employees to engage and respond to these types of inquiries. If one person can’t give up ownership of the information or thinks it’s solely his responsibility to disseminate it, then you have an army of ambassadors going to the front lines with no ammo.

We’ve used Sprint Space to drive change toward a more transparent, authentic culture. And while we haven’t seen universal adoption, there have been several examples of employees sharing knowledge to enhance our employees’ “Sprint story.” Most notably, we recently had an employee in our product ambassadors group post a blog entry highlighting an error with one of our devices. I was able to use this post to solve a customer’s problem on Twitter in minutes.

Word of mouth is more influential now than ever before. Social Media Communications Consultant Shel Holtz often emphasizes that people don’t trust corporate leadership, organizations or the government anymore. Instead, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer, they trust “someone like me.” And the Communications Executive Council recently remarked that we are more likely to trust someone we just met in a parking lot than the any organizational messaging we hear. Therefore, it’s more important now than ever to tell our brand’s story and make it easy for others to spread the word for us.

Social media gives us the power to influence our image across so many different channels no matter what it says on our business cards. You can call yourself a marketer, an internal communicator or a customer service rep. But one thing’s for sure…If you’re not using social media to knock down barriers, build relationships, help customers and share your company story then sooner or later you’ll find yourself in a silo that no one wants to be in – the silo of brands that have become irrelevant.

You can follow Justin on Twitter