The explosion of social media provides publishers opportunities to communicate with our customers in a fast, cost-effective way. Facebook, Twitter and blogs offer us new channels to share news, seek instant feedback and interact. But social media also brings new challenges. To really make the most of social media, it has to be social. Publishers need to listen as well as talk, and understand how and when to respond to criticism. Reputation management and customer service have become public and realtime. This presentation reflects on Nature Publishing Group’s experiences to date, and offers some ‘lessons learned’ from both challenging situations and from success stories.