Social CRM For Dummies

Chapter 4

Courting the Social Customer

In This Chapter

• Getting to know the habits of the social customer
• Catching and keeping the social customer's attention
• Speaking the social customer's language

The entire social CRM world revolves around the social customer, and it's this social customer who led corporations into the new paradigm of social business. Consumers are more educated, savvy, demanding, and active than ever before. Businesses must adapt to meet the needs of these social customers.

Empowered with a network of knowledge, the social customer has forever changed the way business is conducted. Businesses need a strategy to harness the buying power of consumers online. In this chapter, you get a clearer picture of the who, what, when, where, and how of social customers. You learn about their habits and communication methods. This knowledge is essential to building a strategy to reach social customers.

We discuss the media that social customers use and how they use them. This chapter also provides insight into social motivations and behaviors so that you can better approach social customers and ultimately earn their trust to do business together.

Exploring the Habits of the Social Customer

Facebook's rapid growth caught many businesses off guard. “Hey, I guess we need a Facebook page,” echoed across quite a few marketing departments. Then it was, “Jon in IT says there's a whole lot of chatter on Twitter.” It seems there's always a new social media platform to explore, ...