We’ve covered Twitter, forums, the viral spread of social networking and these tools’ impact on media and customer relations.  However, one area that seems to get left out of the industry-wide Web 2.0 discussion is analyst relations.  I recently asked telecom industry influencer and active social media participant, Teresa Cottam of Telesperience , about her take on “social analyst relations.”  Here’s what she had to say:

Q: Do you think analyst relations has been affected by social media?  If so, how?

Cottam: I think Twitter in particular is having a huge effect on analyst relations and marketing in general.  Now we have a much more interactive relationship with the companies we work with and they are able to have a much better understanding of what we’re doing on a weekly basis.   We’re finding that the smaller vendors have seized this opportunity first, with bigger vendors still in ‘broadcast mode’ and simply putting their PR online.  The most innovative companies are working with us to develop an online BSS/OSS community where we’re able to keep up-to-date and see opportunities far more quickly.  If I need help with research, I twitter out a request now and also announce it in groups on LinkedIn.  We also twitter out to our followers when we post a new blog, and this gets re-tweeted bringing people in that may not have done so otherwise.  But while there are great opportunities to create a much closer, real-time, and I would argue, more interactive relationship with analysts, there are also inherent dangers.  These center on inappropriate information being shared because now virtually everyone in the company becomes a spokesperson, but also because on Twitter, there is no role-based separation between what you say as a company representative and what you say as an individual.

Q: Do you have any tips for PR professionals and vendors that want to communicate with analysts via social media?

Cottam: A few months back, we threw some ideas together to get telecoms firms started using Twitter, and we’ve put together a free directory of standard hash tags for use on Twitter which we’re promoting.  The idea is if we all use these hash tags, we can all find our content more easily, creating a community of interest.  It will make my life easier because I can just search for “BSS” and find all of the tweets relating to that.  Darran [Clements] is also putting together a list of telecoms firms that are actively using Twitter, which we’re publishing on Telesperience this month.  If any telecoms firms would like to get in that, please email dc@babworth.com.  Again, it is completely free to take part and is part of our community initiatives in social media.

The sound off on social analyst relations will continue next week …