Social Media Marketing: The Next Generation of Business Engagement

Part I: Chapter 02 “The New Role of the Customer”

The New Role of the Customer
The Social Web visibly connects your business or organization and its stakeholders—customers, suppliers and influencers, each of whom have defined new roles for themselves, very much in control of the information they accept as they evaluate competing options. This chapter explains these new roles in business terms, showing you how to determine who is influencing whom and where the next great ideas are likely to originate.

Review of the Main Points
This chapter explores the more participative role of the customer and the tools that support the new expectation of an opportunity to talk back to the brand, so to speak, and shape future experiences and interactions.

In particular, this chapter covers the following:

  • Social CRM is a business philosophy. It refers to the tools and technologies used to connect your customers and influencers into the forward looking, collaborative processes that will shape your business or organization as you move forward.
  • Where your traditional CRM system is transaction-centric—defining customers in terms of behaviors related to past purchases or interactions—Social CRM is about tapping “what’s next” from their point of view. Like traditional CRM, Social CRM is most useful when applied at the business (operational) level.
    Influencer identification programs—whether targeting bloggers specifically or consumer/enthusiasts and similar influencers—can be automated, with the resultant conversations routed directly into your organization and to the people where it can be most effective. Look for automation, workflow, and contact management when selecting social media analytics and influencer identification tools.
  • Your employees are an integral component of your social business program. Implementing a knowledge-assimilation-and-sharing platform can beneficially impact the ability of your organization to respond to customer-generated innovation.

    In summary, social business involves the entire organization and the complete management team in response to the newly defined role of the customer as a participant in your business. Some of the concepts and technologies may have grown out of or been most recently associated with marketing. Unlike the adoption of social-media-based marketing initiatives, however, picking up on and implementing ideas generated through social business inputs requires the participation of the entire organization.


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