I was quoted in a Globe and Mail article written by David Israelson.
The article is about Suncor's social media strategy. Here's what I had to say:
"It sounds like Suncor’s strategy has been “push” (in other words, putting out their own content). They could look into a “pull” strategy, using monitoring tools that look for mentions of Suncor on Twitter and blogs. There are tools that automatically scan for keywords and then provide the location of that conversation so companies can participate.
Social media demands fast responses and lots of content so it’s important to have clear policies about what is appropriate and where content can be sourced. If there’s a post about Suncor on the front page of Reddit then they’d probably want to respond but Suncor shouldn’t become the online defender for the entire oil sands industry.
Context is king. Suncor should try to integrate their government relations, public relations and social media teams. A co-ordinated approach will ensure they focus their energies on areas that are beneficial to Suncor (rather than just engaging on every Suncor-related issue).
As for Twitter use, the entertainment industry comes to mind. Almost all of the top 100 Twitter accounts are entertainment industry-related. Companies would be wise to see what they’re doing right."