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Want to engage more effectively with your customers and employees? How about participating in the social networks they use.

It's a strategy that's working very well for Peter Aceto, president and CEO of ING Direct Canada. Aceto has a presence on Facebook and Twitter (with more than 1,000 followers) and soon will start his own blog.

Participating in social media conversations can help a business build trust, he says. Especially in the face of the economic crash.

Aceto was speaking at a recent panel in Toronto on corporate uses of social media.

“It's a very sad time to be a CEO in the financial services business," the ING Direct Canada chief said. "All joking aside, the corporate world has let down millions of citizens around the globe.”

Businesses must embrace social networks if they want to have some control over the public's perceptions of their brand, other panellists noted.

The rise of social media has effectively put a megaphone in the hands of every consumer who has something worth saying about a brand they've dealt with.

Quite often, Twitter or Facebook become a powerful platform for disillusioned consumers use to warn others to avoid their fate.

With all the beating they are taking on Web 2.0 networks, it's no surprise that corporate reputations are on a steep decline in recent years, according to Boyd Neil, director of national corporate communications practice at Hill and Knowlton.

“Companies and organizations are facing a sea change in idea creation,” he says. “Anybody has the ability to post anything, anytime and anywhere. Their audience may be small at first, but there's no way to know if that audience will stay small or suddenly influence a much larger group.”

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