I’ve recently been participating in conversations around how to select the most appropriate social network for your business. There are a lot of options out there. Should I create a Facebook application for product/customer specific networking? Jive and Leverage both have attractive UIs. Should we build our own?
One thing is certain. Engaging your customer community and embracing transparency will ultimately fuel your business and make your customers feel heard. Long gone are the days in which a company could spit out a product and not listen to feedback (unless you are Apple). You need to give your community the opportunity to engage with one another and share their opinions on what you’re contributing to your market, or else risk a coup. One should think of the platform as a giant suggestion box.
Mapping the social graph on to the web is a delicate thing. We are social creatures and when selecting which social network is most appropriate to strengthen your brand one needs to take into consideration the community’s intention; i.e. if I use Facebook for personal use, what value does it have in a B2B market? What is the shelf life of this thing? What do my users want to accomplish when using our social network?
With the advent of technology, transparency is crucial. You must give your community the opportunity to engage with one another and give good, bad and ugly observations on your company. Grin and bear the fire hose of information that cannot be ignored 
