Pharma certainly isn’t alone when it comes to dealing with regulatory boundaries concerning customer engagement within social media. As we are aware, the financial industry faces similar barriers with unclear guidance from government regulatory bodies and conservative legal review boards. In this episode of Brian Solis’s Revolution, AVP of Social Media Engagement at SunTrust, Bianca Buckridee, shares with us what it took within her organization to adopt social media as a core part of their communications. 
What SunTrust has that makes their social media program a success…
Customer centric philosophy- organizationally, their social media infrastructure serves as a customer service tool.
Muscle- support from top execs such as the CMO
Cooperation- these guys made the decision to make legal, compliance, HR, and other key players (who could have become the barriers) a part of the planning, execution, and ultimately the team from the get go. This encouraged these groups to do research and understand the medium (including the associated risks) and made them more comfortable when confronted with proposals for the program
Responsibility- as a bank, their job is to protect the privacy of their customers, even if those customers decide to discuss their information publically. Social media is a good platform for that initial contact and to direct the conversation offline (phone or email) where the discussion can continue safely.
Job well done here by SunTrust. Having an effective social media strategy needs buy-in from every department, particularly in an industry where regulations and privacy are of the utmost concern. I typically center on pharma, but it’s nice to see a case study from another industry. Thanks for sharing this one, Hale.
Cheers
Jason Boies
Radian6 Community Team