Last Wednesday, at the Technopolis Business Breakfast, guest speakerAarne Töllinen talked about the use of social media at the Tjäreborg travel agency. The agency offers customer service via social media 76 hours a week—and the client can choose the vehicle: Twitter, Facebook or online chat. The customer service staff appear online with their own names and faces. The tone is light but businesslike, and suited to the medium: smileys are used in Facebook messages but not in e-mail. Töllinen’s key message was that social media should not be a communications afterthought, because that simply increases risks to the organization’s reputation. If you decide to provide customer service through social media, you must set measurable objectives, commit resources, and above all, you need to constantly monitor and manage the service. Tjäreborg is connecting with clients through chat, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube. Quite an effective use of social media in my opinion.