When you think of Twitter, is your first thought, "Who cares what someone had for lunch?" If that's all, you're missing a great opportunity for your business, according to Pamela Kan, president of Bishop-Wisecarver Group, a manufacturer of linear and rotary motion products based in Pittsburg, CA.  

"That is not what the use of social media for business is about," she said. Kan, a proponent of using social technologies in business, recently spoke with me about shifts in technology and skill needs in manufacturing and distribution.

When it comes to social media and business, leaders need to stop thinking of Twitter as a place to read what someone had for lunch and Facebook as a place to post family pictures. Instead they should view social media as a new marketing channel, just as they think about their other marketing channels.

"How the younger generation communicates and how they get their information on anything is evolving quickly," she said. "And it's evolving on these platforms.

"If you sit on the sidelines and just fear it, your customer base is going to pass you by."

In manufacturing and distribution today, the product is only part of the story, according to Kan. "More and more your actual product has less and less to do with the success of your company," she says in the 7 Minutes With … segment of MDM's March Executive Briefing. "It is what you wrap around your product, the experience, the ability for the company to create a really tight relationship with the customer. And I think that's where the use and the leveraging of social technologies is really key."

Read more from Pamela Kan on the shifts in manufacturing and distribution in As Manufacturing Evolves, Learn & Adapt or Be Left Behind or listen to the complete 7 Minutes With… interview at mdm.com/7Minutes.