As more and more Fortune 500 companies we are meeting indicate some experimentation with social media, we note a very common mistake. All too often, these companies come into the “social/conversational” channels with an “officious” voice. As my good friend and digital media sensei, Paul Walker likes to say “it‘s like whipping out a PowerPoint presentation when you’re having dinner with friends.” It comes out of nowhere, not to mention it’s completely inappropriate for the occasion.

The best example of companies doing this is when they enter forums or social networks with official press releases, written like an SEC filing. The social channel rejects this immediately. At best, the companies are ignored. In some of the worst-case scenarios, they are chastised openly and quite literally run out of town, or should I say the channel.

With this in mind, our advice to companies is to carefully consider the channel in which they are communicating. The message can be consistent, but the “voice” needs to be appropriate to the channel. It sounds like communications 101, but you would be surprised at how many companies are tripping over this.