1 - You can better manage the online conversations. People will talk about you and the issues you care about. They might as well do it on your site.
2- If you don't, your constituents will assume that you have something to hide. Do you? Transparency means opening the communications channels.
3 - Social media tools can help facilitate knowledge sharing with and among your customers, members, the public, etc. You can get credit.
When should an organization NOT use social media? When conversations must be regulated by law or you don't have any good answers when people are critical.
Welcome to the new Ironworks User Experience blog. I am personally very proud of the talented team (led by Bill Buell) of information architects, designers, developers and strategists that we have at Ironworks. You can look forward to us sharing our ideas, best practices, creativity, humor and useful resources on this blog. We welcome your active participation with comments and questions.