Social Media Commerce For Dummies

Chapter 8

Finding Your Customer on the Social Web

In This Chapter

Balancing data and instinct

Using customer demographics

Finding out where your customers hang out

Deciding to unfollow

As any business owner knows, market research is a big deal. When you first started your business, you no doubt studied the area in which you planned to operate. For bricks-and-mortar retailers or professionals, considerations such as foot traffic, ease of customer access, future population growth, and demographics all come into play.

Running an Internet business can be more complex. In the early days of e-commerce, the basic assumptions were that customers had a computer and were online. You knew where customers lived only by seeing the addresses to which merchandise was shipped. An online seller had to have a canny understanding of what products their customers might want, and placing ads was a hit-or-miss proposition.

Today, sellers must consider each social network as if it were its own country, having its own particular demographic. Luckily, new tools can help you understand and find your customer ...