Please talk about us: Making our external publics our ambassadors

I've always believed in the importance of making sure employees are provided with the information and tools necessary to be the best kind of ambassadors for a company. I still believe this is important, but in this post I'd like to take it a step further and discuss the importance of inviting those outside of our company or organization to be effective ambassadors.

The topic for this blog post was prompted by the following video from Elder M. Russell Ballard, an Apostle in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which I am a member. More below the video.

As you see in this video, Elder Ballard is calling upon members of the LDS faith to embrace various social media tools in to clarify misconceptions and to talk about the Church. On a side note, it's fascinating to me to see the Church's public affairs staff employing such cutting edge technology to reach a variety of publics; but that's content for another post.

One thing Elder Ballard says in this short clip was particularly insightful. He mentions that the LDS Public Affairs staff is not able to join in all the conversations happening online, so he asks the Church's 13 million members to get involved. This isn't the first time Elder Ballard has addressed this; in a recent session of the worldwide General Conference of the Church he called upon members, in essence, to create a list of key messages and talking points they can use in talking to friends and acquaintances about what we believe in.

Think of the power that can come from giving your publics free reign to go online and elsewhere to talk up your company or organization. I know in PR we often talk about reaching the influentials, but do many companies ask these opinion leaders to actually go out and talk up the company? With the rise of social media, we simply don't have time to get out there and join every conversation happening about our company, but if we can get our fans to do it for us, why give them all they need and then actually asking them to do it. While I think this is a stellar idea J, I'd really like to hear your thoughts on it. Do you think it's a good idea to get out there and ask your supporters to help you communicate your company's messages? As always, I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

For those of you interested in learning more about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, please feel free to contact me. My contact info is listed in my Blogger profile. You can also visit Mormon.org for more information.