How did you get started at Zappos? Tell us a bit about your history with the company.

I was hired to join the Zappos Family as a customer loyalty representative. At the time, I was a magazine editor and looking for a change of scene. Hearing about the progression plans for employees, I couldn’t help but feel that I would be able to chase my passions. I worked as a phone rep for four months before joining the Resource Desk (the team that handles the @zappos_service Twitter account while assisting the entire CLT team on the floor with difficult situations). After five months, I joined the Zappos Blogs Team as a blog copywriter where I was able to lend my journalism talent to Zappos and six months later joined the Brand Marketing team as the Social Engagement Scientist. My primary role is inspiring engagement on our social channels around fashion, culture, customer service and our community efforts.

Love the title, Social Engagement Scientist! From what you’ve seen, how do you think social media has helped evolve the Zappos brand over the years?

We really view all of these channels as a means for communication. Social channels have enabled our customers  to communicate with us in new ways and listening to our customers helps us deliver WOW through service (our #1 core value). Beyond improving communication between our customers and our brand, we have really enjoyed using mediums like Twitter to communicate with each other. You can see the Zapponians who tweet at twitter.zappos.com.

Great! We’ll start following the Zapponians! Speaking of social media, how does Zappos use customer relationship management currently paired with social media? Do they tend to work well together?

We deliver the same world-class service in social media that customers would receive on the phone, live chat, email, etc. While we sometimes help customers on Twitter and Facebook, it’s a very small part of interactions on those channels. Most of the conversation revolves around sharing positive experiences and totally random conversations (video games, food, Internet celebrities – seriously, follow @zappos_service). Our Customer Loyalty Team doesn’t use any scripts on the phone and we avoid them in social as well. Every customer deserves their own experience and social media has been a great place to tailor positive experience.

We want to thank Graham for his answers. Lots of great information to share with our readers. Please tell us your thoughts after reading, in the comments below and look for the 2nd part of this interview tomorrow!

Three hundred years ago, craftsmen made their wares and sold them to those in their immediate vicinity. There was no need for any real marketing, because everyone knew where to find the cobbler. Since most of the population couldn’t read anyway, a simple wooden sign with the image of a shoe told would-be customers all they needed to know. The cobbler didn’t even have to be nice to his customers if he was the only shoemaker in town.

Then the Industrial Revolution arrived, and things began to change. Consumers had to be encouraged to buy one company’s products over another. Print ads promoted the product, but seldom the company.
In the 20th century, radio and television continued to hype products, and by the end of this century, the Internet age brought sweeping changes. Now, consumers had an easy way to verify product claims, research companies, and share opinions and experiences with one another.

As manufacturers began to understand how this could work for and against them, they all launched Web sites to not only market their products, but themselves. They provided their company histories, listed all the charitable work they perform, and explained why not only their products, but the great guys running the company, were worthy of consumer loyalty. All sorts of bells and whistles—interactivity, freebies, games, reward programs and social media—were introduced as components of marketing on the Internet.

Progress never stands still, and social networking has changed the rules of marketing. This platform provides a whole new way for companies to connect with customers and respond to their needs, as well as for word-of-mouth advertising—and complaints—to spread around a social community. Where consumers once had limited power in terms of endorsing or badmouthing a product – unless they were a celebrity – the Internet levels the playing field greatly and allows everyday people to share their opinions with an ever-widening audience.

Companies found out early on that their customers didn’t stand for typical commercials or print ads simply coded up for use on Web sites. What developed was a subtle way of marketing to users without heavy-handed advertising. Companies may now even promote themselves or their brand image more than their products, and to focus on building relationships.

A new social media provider has added another element to the marketing mix. Foursquare allows users to earn points and win prizes by “checking in” at local establishments, using a mobile phone. They can also earn points by making recommendations that other people act upon or for acting on the recommendations of others. Companies market the business by merely stating what prize they offer and at what level. For example, Ben & Jerry’s in New York’s East Village offers 3 scoops for $3 with a Foursquare check-in, while Garden Fresh Vegan Cuisine in Palo Alto, California gives users a free appetizer on their sixth-check in. User can also compete to be named “Mayor” of the establishment by being the most loyal customer during the week, a level which nets them a new level of lagniappe.

When the powers that be asked me to write a post on “introductory marketing in the Internet age,” my first thought was that I would tell readers to simply throw out all the stuff they ever learned about marketing, and start over. The Internet, and particularly social media, is that much of a game-changer.  For many companies, marketing now means making it up as they go along—sometimes successfully, other times with spectacularly disastrous results—which is in itself exciting. The rules are changing, but that also means that we can make up our own rules. The only hard-and-fast requirement, I think, is to make sure you’re a part of the online and social networking communities. After all, there’s more than one cobbler in this town now.

Your business is not on the Internet? What the heck is wrong with you?

OK, I’m kidding, of course—but seriously, if you’re not on the ‘net, you are losing opportunities and sales. Period. You may also be tarnishing your brand. As more and more consumers embrace not only online shopping, but also technologies that put them in touch with companies—social media platforms like Twitter and Foursquare, applications for mobile phones, and online knowledge bases or live chat software—they might be looking for you online. If you’re not there, chances are the customers will find your competitors.

Before we jump into the advantages of doing business online, a real life example will serve to inspire and motivate you, as well as help you think about how you could benefit from an online business.

Not long ago a friend and I had a lunch date, and we considered trying a local restaurant that just opened near my office. I thought that it was a casual place that served sandwiches and salads, but decided to check out their Web site to make sure. A Google search of the restaurant’s name yielded a surprising dearth of information. My next stop was the wiki created for my city, which has a directory of local establishments with reviews, but it didn’t include this place. I headed over to Yelp, and again typed the name into the search bar. Nothing. By this time I figured that Facebook and Twitter were a long shot, but I tried them anyway—nada.

I don’t like surprises. My friend and I ended up lunching at a tex-mex joint, where she was able to check in with Foursquare—earning us some complimentary guacamole. Not only that, but I was able to peruse the menu online beforehand and even see nutritional information, so I could plan my meal and not completely wreck my diet.

Maybe your business can afford to lose the equivalent of a $30 lunch. Maybe not. The point is that consumers across the world now turn to the Internet for information and recommendations, and unless you are a confirmed Luddite, why wouldn’t you provide those things to them through this inexpensive, useful medium?

It takes very little in the way of equipment and capital to set up your business online. There are numerous free applications that can help you establish a presence—WordPress or another free blog-hosting site and social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, where you can easily communicate with customers and market your business. You can access these from your home computer or smartphone. If you’re a small business, that may be all you need to start.

If you’re a little more established—or would like to be—you might want to think about running your operations in the cloud. What this means is that instead of purchasing a server and additional hardware, you store your data and run all your business applications in the cloud. That way all of your employees can access the tools they need to do their job with nothing more than an Internet connection. Cloud computing offers you tremendous scalability, so if you anticipate growth but don’t have a lot of capital to invest, this is the way to go. There are tons of applications to choose from, or you can have one custom developed to fit your business’s unique needs. Either way, you’ll be able to streamline all your workflows and processes, from inventory management to contact management to sales forecasting—freeing you up to focus on creating and selling a quality product. Oh, and counting your profits, of course.

Customer relationship management, or CRM, has been called Marketing 2.0. For years, marketing was spinning its wheels; sure, it incorporated elements of psychology and sociology, improved consumer research tactics, and some new technologies as well—in-aisle grocery store coupons, anyone? With Web 2.0 and Web-based CRM, however, marketing has made a giant leap for businesskind.

I hate to harp on social media, but the fact is that social sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Foursquare aren’t just a fun diversion or a flash in the pan. They are the new face of business, and those companies who have leveraged them successfully are the pace setters. It used to be enough to build and maintain a Web site, but now your company needs to be where the customers are—and that’s at the social networking sites. Between January 2009 and January 2010, Facebook had over 130 million unique users. You’d have to be crazy not to tap into that market.

Your company needs to be connecting with established customers through social networking platforms, and using those platforms to draw in new customers. There are many creative marketing strategies that can spring from the use of Web 2.0 in conjunction with customer relationship management.

Practical Application:
J & D’s BaconSalt is a small company that makes—you guessed it—bacon-flavored salt, mayonnaise, popcorn, ranch dressing mix and other products. They even have a bacon-flavored lip balm! (P.S. My birthday’s coming up.) The guys at BaconSalt have a delivery truck painted like a giant strip of bacon, a bacon costume that they entice employees to wear for events, and a great sense of how to use social media for marketing. They embrace Twitter, share recipes on Facebook, have a YouTube channel and a blog, and really know how to work the publicity machine.

Case in point: Their 2010 April Fool’s Day joke, which was an announcement of a new product launch. As improbable as it might seem, they dreamed up BaconBaby, a bacon-flavored infant formula, and a lot of people fell for it, hook line and sinker. BaconBaby—and the ensuing outrage—was all over the Twitterverse, the blogosphere and the news sites. I imagine this little stunt ruffled a few feathers, but I bet it also brought a lot of people to the product. Their most recent campaign, which can be seen at the website www.dontsnortit.com, is a thoroughly tongue-in-cheek response to a fan’s YouTube video—and another surefire way to get people talking.

J&D’s uses old-school marketing techniques (build buzz, give customers added value, saturate the market) with new-school technologies (social media). Chances are you’re already employing some of these marketing strategies; the trick now is to integrate them, and to have in place a thorough, automated CRM system to capture the leads you get, generate reports of lead conversion, and keep track of customer information.

Cloud-based CRM is the best way to do this, because it’s mobile, scalable and requires less capital for a start-up or small business. Instead of investing in multiple servers and the infrastructure to support them, cloud platforms enable your company to pay for just what you need, as you need it. With intuitive, point-and-click capabilities, mobile apps and visibility into all aspects of the company-customer relationship, a CRM system that runs in the cloud makes automating routine administrative work a breeze. It also gives all authorized employees a real-time view of the customer and the sales pipeline. A good CRM system will give you insight into your customers and your leads, so that you can target them more effectively. And that’s what marketing is all about, really, isn’t it?

Now, someone please pass the bacon.

The traditional way of providing customer service? Supply your customers with a telephone number keyed into a bewildering variety of voicemail forward options with only marginal specificity to their problems and concerns. Make it very difficult for your customers to connect with a real, live customer service representative. If one customer does manage to connect with a service agent, make sure that service agent is operating out of a call center located in an analogous location and that he or she has very little personal investment in helping your customer solve their dilemma.

How satisfied do you think that customer will be by the end of this interaction? How long before she bails?

In contrast, the new way to optimize customer service is to integrate Customer Relationship Management (CRM) call center software solutions with social media such as Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and Yelp.  Additionally, social marketing tools such as blogs, forums, FAQs and wikis can be utilized so that a customer’s relationship with your company’s customer-service department extends far beyond the solution of a one-time problem.

There’s an obvious synergy between CRM and social networking: both are about connecting and engaging in new ways. Social networking sites I mentioned can provide many more useful (and less expensive) insights into the strength and pliability of your brand than the more conventional marketing focus group. Additionally, social networking sites are a means of launching and managing grassroots marketing campaigns. Social networking tools enables your company to become architects of your customers’ experience: your product-centric Facebook page becomes a virtual community where visitors are encouraged to swap information and connect with other visitors, enabling you to better understand them.

Two of the most useful social media and networking tools to integrate into your existing CRM strategies are blogs and Twitter.

• Blogs: A blog is a kind of journal, with textual commentaries made on a regular basis, often enhanced by graphics, videos and links to other websites. The word itself is a contraction of the term “web log.” An important blog feature is the comments section in which blog readers write their own thoughts on the subject. Blogs are a great way to build a customer’s familiarity with the brand in a casual and conversational way that doesn’t feel like a hard sell.
• Twitter: Twitter is the social networking and microblogging site that allows users to send short text-based posts called “tweets.” It gives you the opportunity to converse with your consumers in real-time.  Alternatively, it gives your customers a platform to spread information about your company or its services–good or bad.  Twitter can be a huge friend to your bottom line, or if ignored a potential nightmare.

Practical Application:
Carphone Warehouse, Europe’s leading independent retailer of mobile phones and services, had a problem: disgruntled customers, fed up with slow service via CPW’s conventional customer service methods, were posting their complaints on Twitter.
CPW had a reputation crisis on its hands. Management came up with a novel means for containing it: the company started its own Twitter accounts and publicly broadcast the simple message, “We’re sorry.” Then they set about providing personalized responses to customer service tweets.

Anne Wood, CPW’s Head of Knowledge Management, noted, “We can’t control whether customers are complaining or the content of the complaints they post in the cloud. We also realized customer complaints are a positive driving force for changes that need to happen within our company.”

Today CPW fields between 80 and 100 customer service complaints on Twitter. Of these, perhaps five require follow-up through more conventional customer service channels; the remainder only require acknowledgement. The simple act of hearing and responding to a customer’s dissatisfaction using social media allows Carphone Warehouse to convert a casual customer into a loyal customer.

Blogs were a bit of a self-indulgent fad not that long ago. You signed up with a service like Blogger or TypePad, and started writing about whatever you wanted to: your kids, your pet salamander, your volunteer work at the soup kitchen, your low-carb recipes. It was a nice way to share information with your friends, but a lot of people thought that blogs were a flash in the pan.

And then businesses got involved.

So what can your business gain from starting a blog? Well, you can offer your customers a behind-the-scenes look at how things work. You can give them a place to interact with you and join the conversation through the comments section. You can help build excitement about new products or services that are being developed or launched. And you can demonstrate a transparency that may just result in increased customer trust and loyalty.

I know these are rather intangible things, so let me give you an example of corporate blogging in action. The business solutions provider IBM decided to hand the blogging reins over to its employees. That’s right—they are letting their employees blog about whatever they want. Naturally, a lot of these folks are passionate about their work, so they blog about technology, business, economics, consulting. Others blog about their families, GLBT issues, history, travel, politics, skiing, photography and literature. Some blogs are funny, others rambling, still others maintain a professional voice. All of the bloggers will tell you that their opinions are not representative of IBM; these snapshots of the people who work there, however, do allow the blogs’ readers to connect directly with IBM employees and become invested in their lives. It also allows a little window onto the culture of the company and its day-to-day operation.

Practical Application

Another approach is the top-down blog. John Mackey, the CEO of natural and organic foods retailer Whole Foods, has his own blog—and has since September 2005. He uses the blog as a platform from which to speak about social responsibility, trust, health care reform, capitalism, and of course the ongoing activities of the company. Late in 2009, he blogged about stepping down from his position as Chairman of the Board at Whole Foods, although he has maintained his CEO-ship. A quick skim of the comments to this post reveals a polarization that is characteristic of consumers’ responses to this controversial company. The first comment lauds Mackey; the second lambasts him, and the conversation continues. What’s remarkable about this blog—no matter where you may stand on the love/hate divide when it comes to shopping Whole Foods—is the transparency it offers, and the fact that it respects all views. This allows consumers to voice their opinion, to speak directly to the higher-ups at a major grocery chain—you can rest assured that all of these comments are being read by someone at Whole Foods, if not by Mackey himself—and to really feel that they are being heard.

There are a lot of reasons to get involved in social media for your business, and blogging may be a good way to start. Give your customer a glimpse behind the scenes, share some things about your business in an informal, conversational setting, and see what happens. You might just find that opening your blog to the public eye will also lead customers through your doors.

Social media is the hot new way to market and promote your business, but make no mistake—it’s not just a fad. If you haven’t gotten on board with Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook and other platforms for social customer relationship management, take a look at these success stories.

Blendtec is a small blender company with a pretty small marketing and advertising budget. Yet one thing Blendtec did have was an innovative idea that stemmed from a simple question: Will it blend? They made a series of videos in which the company’s founder, Tom Dickson, takes various consumer items—an iPhone, a Rubik’s Cube, marbles and a disposable lighter, among other things—and feeds them into the company’s Total Blender. The videos went viral on the video-sharing site YouTube, resulting in an explosion of sales within the company’s retail division. In face, they’ve seen a 700 percent increase in sales—with an initial investment of just $50. That’s some serious ROI, my friends.

Baby products manufacturer Graco, on the other hand, used the photo-sharing site Flickr, as well as a blog, to improve their sales by creating an online community of parents and babies. They encouraged their customers to submit via Flickr pictures of their babies, with a Graco product, they purchased. Showing real people using a product isn’t a new approach, but doing so online is an innovative way to get the message out. Graco even sponsored local events, then posted those pictures to the Flickr account as well, further positioning itself as a company that values family, parenthood and community.

Comcast found a different approach. Taking into consideration how social networking has revolutionized the American lifestyle, they created @comcastcares, a Twitter account which caters to the needs of their clients and offers instant responses to any concerns they may have. Frank Eliason is the man behind the tweets, and he may well be the most famous customer service rep in the world. He responds directly to consumers who express dissatisfaction with Comcast on Twitter, and actively tries to resolve issues, whether they are related to customer service, billing or technical issues. Says Eliason, who uses his own picture as an avatar to give his tweets a personal touch, “Now when [people] think Comcast, they think Frank.”

Accounting and tax software company Intuit takes the power of social media in yet another direction. They have an online community, where anyone can ask questions and get answers from real people, as well as a tax wiki called TaxAlmanac. A wiki is an online, interactive encyclopedia or knowledge base that anyone can edit. Its content is offered for free use on websites or in business documents, as long as proper credit is given, and it’s valuable as a resource where anyone can learn about tax issues or law, accounting, small business financial topics, and current judicial events.

There are hundreds of other businesses—ranging from freelance writers who work out of their basement, to multinational giants such as Coke and McDonalds—that have learned how to use social networking to grow their profits and improve customer relationships. While traditional businesses may tread water temporarily, pretty soon they’re going to have to learn how to swim in the water of social media. If they don’t, they might just sink.

Customer satisfaction comes in different styles. Some companies focus on producing quality products, while others like to engage their customers in conversations. The most forward thinking companies are using social media platforms to reach out to their customers, solicit feedback from them, and develop a more personal and meaningful relationship on the B2C front.

The most popular social media sites—Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Foursquare and others—provide a rich, interactive way to connect businesses, whether big or small, to both current and potential customers. Each of these platforms has a different focus, and so each can be used in different ways. Companies who want to maximize customer relationship management should take a closer look at all of them, and decide where best to focus their social media energy.

Twitter allows users to broadcast short messages viareal-time communication to their “followers.” Companies can use Twitter to spread the word about sales, discounts, events, publicity and other news; they can also use it to speak directly to customer and address their concerns or answer questions.

Take Hunt Country Wines, a small, family-run winery in Upstate New York. The owners have both a Twitter and a Facebook account, and through both media they interact with followers and customers on a very personal, down-to-earth basis. They announce what’s going on at the winery—bottling, harvesting or festivals, for example—and also respond directly to customers’ compliments and suggestions. Additionally, they sometimes retweet or share with Facebook fans links about the family’s other interests—local food, recipes, wellness, sustainability and climate change. Although the Hunts sometimes offer discounts through social media, they don’t do it so often that they seem like they’re selling. It’s more like a gift from a friend, because they’ve taken the time to establish a bonafide relationship with followers.

Another small—but growing—company that gets social media right is Stacy’s Snacks. Not long ago they were introducing a new pita chip, with a gingerbread-inspired flavor, and they turned to the Facebook community to solicit suggestions for the snack’s name. You can bet this got the crowd buzzing about the new flavor that was already in the works, as well as suggesting additional varieties that could be developed. It also kept the Stacy’s name on everyone’s lips—and shopping lists. And it helped show the customers that Stacy’s valued their opinions and input.

The latest entrant into the social media world is Foursquare, which is almost more like a game to play. By “checking in” from restaurants, coffee shops, bars and other places, via a mobile device such as a smartphone, users can let followers and friends know their whereabouts. But the genius aspect of Foursquare for business is that users can rack up points and badges, and collect rewards from those businesses—say a free latte or cocktail, a discount on your meal, etc. For example, Lucky Strike Lanes in Denver, Colorado rewards a certain level of Foursquare users, called “Mayors,” with a free appetizer and a free hour of bowling. In return for these lagniappes, your business gets an awful lot of publicity and word-of-mouth advertising.

These are just a few of the ways you can reach out to your customers through social media in order to build stronger customer relationships, as well as building your company’s brand. Social networking has ceased to be a “trendy” thing to do—it’s now vital if you want your products to stay in the public eye.

Now that the so-called Baby Boomers are reaching retirement age and becoming less influential as consumers, marketers are focusing on Generations X, Y, and Z. Technological developments in the past 40 years, particularly the advent of the Internet, and now social media, mean that marketers not only have a new avenue to approach these consumers, but that their very responses to marketing and advertising initiatives have changed. It’s simply not possible to put a print ad in a magazine and call it a day anymore—companies with something to sell have to be more aggressive, creative and responsive than ever.

This means that it takes more than a spreadsheet and a file cabinet of ad mock-ups to promote your product. Generations X and beyond demand the superior capabilities provided by a cloud-based customer relationship management, or CRM, solution.

Customer relationship management is a system that integrates data collection, electronic communication channels and knowledge base management to provide companies with a complete picture of their prime demographic. The multiple channels through which customers can connect with your product—not to mention with other customers—means that you need a comprehensive way of capturing, analyzing and sharing data. Customer relationship management helps sales teams sell better, marketing teams shape more effective campaigns and help desk agents to provide meaningful, personable and above all, useful customer service.

These generations have, for the most part, grown up with computers. This means that they want information presented instantaneously and through a variety of exciting media. They also insist on companies demonstrating accountability, transparency and accessibility. Even the largest companies can no longer afford to be aloof monoliths; they have to make it easy for customers to share opinions and complaints with them.

The most successful companies know how to do this, through the avenues provided by social media and mobile communications. Take the coffee giant Starbucks, which may have a reputation for $5 lattes, but is also known for listening and responding to its customers. A dedicated Web site, My Starbucks Idea, lets users spout off and make suggestions, as well as vote for their peers’ ideas. Starbucks has a huge presence on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, uses text messages to reach out to customers, and gives away free iTunes song downloads to its customers. In other words, Starbucks meets its customers wherever they can be found—online, using an iPhone or another cellphone, on the streets, and even in grocery stores, where the coffee company successfully sells not only whole-bean and ground coffee, but brewed coffee beverages and other items.

Especially for those companies that are accustomed to old-fashioned methods of marketing and advertising, this brave new world of Web-based marketing may seem overwhelming. That’s where the use of cloud-based customer relationship management applications, to keep track of it all and simply things so you can actually use them, comes in. Capturing, sorting, routing and reporting data—all in real-time, with an intuitive interface that doesn’t take forever to master—means that less administrative time is spent compiling reports or analyzing metrics.

The CRM apps can be customized to generate charts, graphs, text-based reports and more, and to distribute those to any employee who may need to see them. Keeping track of customers, their preferences, account history and social networking presence is a difficult task, but it’s also necessary—why not harness the power of cloud-based systems that were developed to make things easy? That way, you can get back to connecting with customers in a meaningful way—one aspect of successful business that will never change.

If you’re reading this blog, chances are you have an account with either Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare or Twitter—if not all of them. It’s almost certain that you have watched a video on YouTube or looked at pictures on Flickr. You might even be a blogger yourself. But social networking for purely social and personal purposes is different than using a social networking strategy to grow your business.

So your company has opened a Twitter account and uploaded its logo as an avatar. What now? Here are five best practices that can help you be a smart social schmoozer.

1) Decide What to Achieve Through Social Networking

• Are you trying to raise awareness?
• Is your goal to improve the company’s product through collaboration?
• Just here to advertise the product?
• Are you striving to improve customer service?
• Using the tools for contests or campaigns to drive business to the company’s website?
• Want to survey customers to gather information in a crowdsourcing forum?
• Are you promoting an event to increase sales or raise funds?
• Do you need a forum to facilitate a discussion?

Each answer to these questions will allow your business to determine which social networking tool is the best to achieve the desired goal. Blogs, Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn may each play a role, depending upon the desired outcome.

2) Decide Where to Apportion Your Attention and Energy

Depending upon the company’s goals, you will want to use various social networking tools in different capacities. For instance, many companies use Twitter for customer service applications. Some companies use blogs to provide value-added information and to engage customers in a less formal atmosphere, while still providing purchasing opportunities. Promoting your business through Foursquare, by offering a badge that users can achieve by “checking in” from your brick-and-mortar site or by offering freebies to Foursquare users, can really get your name out there and get people buzzing, especially since Foursquare is integrated with Twitter. Other businesses rely on Facebook to host contests, solicit feedback from users, and organize events related to their products. For example, the bagel-and-coffee chain Einstein Bros. Bagels recently hosted two single-day events on which they offered free items to new Facebook fans. The “Bagel Bonanza” and “National Bagel Day” events drove Einstein Bros.’s fan base on the social networking site from 4,700 to a whopping 405,900+ — a pretty  impressive number for a midsize restaurant chain.

3) Monitor the Social Networking Sites

Once the company decides which social networking tools to use to accomplish the desired goal, the next step is to monitor the social networking site of choice, and to analyze the data once it is received. A cloud-based customer relationship management application can help your company do this with ease, by aggregating the information, presenting it in accessible formats such as charts or graphs, and making the result available to authorized users across all channels of your company. Yet you’ll also need to have a dedicated staff member who handles your social media, reading and sending tweets or updating Facebook statuses. Companies who monitor social networks through a combination of human interaction and automated CRM processes can alleviate customer concerns before they escalate, and use the knowledge they gain to drive marketing initiatives.

4) Implement the Idea or Strategy

Once companies gather information from various social networking sites, they must use the information to make a change or improvement in the product, service, or company. For instance, a company may engage an audience through YouTube. However, once the audience is engaged, the company needs to use the excitement to drive them to action, whether it is to buy a product or donate for a cause. Alternatively, if information is gathered through Twitter or a blog, companies must take action to implement the suggestions. It doesn’t do any good to have a social media component to your business if you don’t use it. These are excellent platforms for listening to your customers—take what they say and apply it.

5) Follow Up

This might sound simplistic, but it’s surprising how many companies don’t follow up with their customers after responding to a concern or addressing a need using social media. Again, if you’re listening to your customers and responding to them through these channels, wouldn’t it be a good idea to go that extra mile and tell them thank you, or ask if the situation was resolved to their satisfaction? In the case of promotions, you’ll need to keep engaging the new fans or followers that you receive as a result of the campaign—follow up by asking for their feedback or opinions, offer them additional coupons or information, and generally keep your brand on the tip of their tongue, to transform them from a casual fan into a lifelong customer.