Vala Afshar has rewritten the rules of corporate social media by reaching beyond the IT industry and engaging in horizontal communications.

Afshar, the chief marketing officer for software-defined networking company Extreme Networks, has amassed more than 35,000 Twitter followers despite only joining the social network in 2011. He's written a book "The Pursuit of Social Business Excellence," operates a popular Huffington Post blog and hosts a weekly podcast.

With Afshar at the helm, the San Jose, Calif.-based Extreme Networks now uses social media for everything from recruiting new talent to reaching new customers to offerings insights into business behavior. 

"The best way to help grow influence is to help others grow theirs," Afshar told more than 500 people Wednesday at the Business Innovation Factory's BIF10 conference in Providence, R.I.

Afshar's family immigrated to the United States from Iran two years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution as the Iran-Iraq War was heating up. He studied electrical engineering as an undergraduate and graduate at the University of Massachusetts, and spent eight years running quality global assurance. Based on positive customer feedback in this role, Afshar was asked to move to the services side and lead customer support operations.

Given his experience, Afshar encouraged solution providers to use social media to go beyond traditional IT channels and engage with businesses of all stripes on issues such as mobility, bring your own device and the internet of things. Partners should look to do more than simply provide products and services and infuse end users with infrastructure expertise, business intelligence and technological insight.

To help bridge the gap between IT and the outside world, Afshar encouraged tech companies to create a chief digital office role to make sure they're continually being disruptive.   

"If you're not helpful, you're not influential," he said.  

Afshar has also taken to recruiting and vetting new hires on social media.

When an opening emerged for Extreme Networks' director of digital marketing position – a role that pays well into the six figures – Afshar posted it solely on twitter under the socialcv hashtag. He received hundreds of applications from Twitter alone, including the person he ultimately hired.

Afshar also finds a person's digital footprint far more effective than a resume in determining a prospective hire's competence and temperament, since any rough edges are smoothed out or sanitized on a resume.

But on social media, Afshar said examples of antagonistic behavior by potential hires such sparring on Twitter as leaving nasty comments on a blog can be easily spotted.

Likewise, Afshar urged business to condense their feedback loop for workers. He considers the annual performance review to be an anachronism, and likened it to going to the gym only once a year.

"If you exercise only once a year, you're dead," Afshar said.