I came across an article called ” The Social Customer, The Social Brand and Social Business” . The article starts with the social media context. It argues that social customers are overwhelmed by social media like Twitter, Facebook ,RSS and etc. This is exactly the way I feel in my daily life. The article pointed out that people  filter  out the noise in order to “consume” the relevant information within a limited amount of time. Social company should think how to target their audience in the most efficient way. The principle  they use in the article is to provide with ” the right content, at the right time, in the right channel to the right customer.” This is also the aspect that people think social media can perform better than the traditional media in terms of marketing.

Another issue about social media is that different departments in a company want to use social media. The overlap of responsibilities can easily create chaos in the system. As mentioned in the class, social media can be used to build customer relationship, deal with consumer complaints , expand business landscape and so on. As a result, marketing department , PR and customer support segments all want to own social media. This requires company to think thoroughly about how to restructure the company .

In the end, the author summarized the roles of social network users as follows:

• The social customer creates value ( purchase, indirectly selling products via advocacy, product feedback)
• The social brand creates value by listening and engaging( relevant content, discounts, real conversations)
• The social business creates value by implementing change internally

The original article is available at : http://www.britopian.com/2012/02/17/the-social-customer-the-social-brand-the-social-business/