Smart Business, Social Business: A Playbook for Social Media in Your Organization

4. Embracing the Social Customer

In a perfect real-world scenario, this book is meant to mirror, in chronological order, the natural evolution into a social business. That is, a business undergoes a cultural change and a shift in the way it operates:

Tearing down silos and communicating effectively across the organization → adopting social technologies that foster communication globally → instituting governance models that emphasize smart participation on the social web → employing tactical considerations that address the social customer.

People have always been social, even before the Internet. Sharing experiences with others about the brands, products, and services that they love or hate comes naturally. The difference today is that the social ...