ThoughtPaper_RetailSocialMedia_Master_20130129_DRAFT

Social media helps connect with all the key stakeholders Most organizations currently cite ‘communicating with customers’ as the most prominent activity that they address using social media; be it for the communication before sale, or after sale. For instance, most organizations use social media for promotion of their brand, advertising their merchandise as well as to provide after-sale support.

Businesses, however, still appear to be less inclined to use social media to capture customer insights, monitoring their brand, conducting research, or soliciting ideas for new products or services, despite these being some of the most potential opportunities available from social media. Given the mass of population that social media channel can quickly generate and address, data about customer perspectives, desires and habits can be captured very quickly and for far lesser a cost than that from traditional methods. With time, however, the usage of social media may change significantly and tilt more in favour of ‘soliciting customer ideas and insights’ from ‘mere customer servicing or information dissemination’.

Interestingly, in addition to communicating with customers, Social media has an ability to touch almost all the key organizational functions and in turn establish communication and relations with multiple stakeholders, as can be seen from the infographic below: