Social intelligence in customer engagement/ Merlin Stone

This article explains how social media channels enable brands and companies to engage with consumers. It builds on the authors' work on customer management strategies, showing how social media can be used throughout the customer management cycle. The authors suggest that for social media to be used effectively in support of the above strategies, companies must be fully aware of the effect social media are having upon marketing, develop the required social media capabilities, identify strategies which use these capabilities to support overall marketing strategy and prioritise carefully how they want to use social media. The required capabilities relate to the following areas: measurement; workflow management and agility, execution, brand and proposition management, customer experience management partner management, data management; technology; direction and leadership; people and culture; insights and planning; and channels and media.