<p>When it comes to empowering your Business by integrating Social Media, the first step is to realize it's not just about Facebook, Twitter or getting the right combination of the various social channels: It's about the transformation of traditional business culture.</p><p>After all, every business throughout history has always been 'social'- Defined and sustained through the relationships they cultivated. Whether it's the brand relationship with their customers, the office culture that unites employees or the strategic leadership that steers the business, the threads that bind them all together are social. These relationships have usually been bound by the tools that enabled them: From letters and telephones to faxes and then emails, how we connected to one another outlined the context of our relationships. It also defined corporate culture, from how employees connected with consumers to the way companies structured knowledge sharing, redefined by continues technological innovation and The Internet Revolution.</p><p>To become an empowered social business is to inject the advantages of social media directly into the heart of your corporate DNA. That means recognizing it's not only about having a fantastic Facebook page or a high profile Twitter account (though that might be part of the plan!). It's about implementing the benefits social technology offers through the fabric of your business- not just the consumer facing ones. What social networking tools provide is a way to break the divides that separate your employees and their expertise from customers and one another, fostering a climate of knowledge sharing and collaboration. Instead of isolated knowledge hives, you build engaged communities who relate and share with one another naturally. It's about building a social corporate culture where innovative solutions naturally arise by a foundation built on trust and a love of sharing, a business of conversation and mass participation.</p><p>The groundwork for that future isn't built overnight, and doesn't often happen in a vacuum. It usually begins with a committed leadership who understand that unlike traditional IT technology (where you could often afford to be a little late and just upgrade), building meaningful relationships take time. More importantly, they see that more and more of their customers are now fully engaged with social networks, as are their employees and potential hires. They get that the decision to go social needs to happen sooner rather than later, and once that decision is made consistent and committed action will decide much of the outcome. The shape and manner of that implementation is unique to every business, but at the core of any fruitful shift to social I believe is the fostering of trust- the key to every relationship both online and off.</p><p><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/michakaufman/2013/04/02/demolishing-the-social-hype/">Keep reading...</a></p><p>Read also:</p><p><a href="http://www.business2community.com/strategy/what-makes-a-true-social-business-strategist-0453341">What Makes a True Social Business Strategist?</a> (Business 2 Community)</p><p><a href="http://www.cio.com/article/731097/Social_Media_Certifications_Prepare_Students_Employees_for_Social_Business">Social Media Certifications Prepare Students, Employees for Social Business</a> (CIO)</p><p>Explore: <a href="http://news.google.com/news/more?ncl=d_MJ7g-ZqiWzoxMyfTMKHP8qJ7ePM&ned=us">58 additional articles.</a></p>