We have all seen the explosion of corporations creating online communities, but let us take a look at how easy it can be to connect with your e-commerce customers and how important social media is to your customers.

First, we have to ask the question, How do you take the seemingly limitless conversations and turn them into actionable insights? Also, how can you understand what is being said and the context of those conversations?

Social media in any context offers incredibly good (and free) feedback on a variety of goods and services. Online Retailers need to use this information to their advantage. Using it to your advantage means using both the good and bad comments. Here are some practical tips we can take a look at. Most importantly, keep the conversation going and make sure your content is relevant and current. Do remember that the end goal is product sales and customer connections. Also, rekindle the passion for your brand consistently using these methods. For example, if you a leading e-commerce website and you are involved in a social forum, why not hold weekly or bi-weekly chat sessions about the experiences with ordering product? You will get invaluable responses from doing something like this.

It is also very important to constantly think about the audience you are trying to go after, consider your age demographics, race, and gender as well. Who are the most likely people to purchase your products and who do you want to expand to? These are key points to remember when considering your marketplace.

It is really no surprise that online e-commerce businesses were one of the first groups to use social media to make their brand more social. They enabled customers to find out what their peers were thinking and provided valuable insight that could be viewed in “real time”.

Building a truly interactive community within an e-commerce platform is important as it creates a more efficient retail environment where customer opinions, relevant content and product information are freely distributed. It is only then that “social commerce” can happen.

To accomplish this, retailers must be able to integrate social media elements, such as social networking features and user generated platforms directly into their commerce environments.

As a result of this, online retailers can create and own a unique social experience that would encompass the entire customer lifecycle. Customers can than enjoy a more integrated shopping experience and retailers will see an increase in unique visitors to their online store that are “predisposed” to their marketing messages. This will streamline marketing efforts and lead to increased profits and decreased costs.

Social media allows to empower customers by enabling them to establish user profiles that pull in data and relationships to online stores. At this point customers can interact and provide you (the online retailer) invaluable customer feedback, and bring in potential new customers.

By building and maintaining vibrant communities that address the passion of the retailer’s core audience, and then spreading that passion to the larger social web, retailers will attract loyal and engaged customers, and will achieve better business results.

Social media is absolutely crucial to an online retailers success today. Social media allows you to engage a customer, get new business, and most importantly elicit invaluable customer feedback that will turn into increased sales.

If you are into marketing and advertising then you may learn a lot with regards to social internet marketing by applying tips and hints from first class sportsmen. Everybody appreciates that athletes prepare hard to attain their objective. The minimum necessities are fine helpings of effort and willpower.

A great deal of this is going on in the background. Check out some of the more successful advertising and marketing campaigns – for example Starbucks or Victoria’s Secrets. What seems to be effortless, has, in fact, taken several months of conception, screenings and execution.

The insinuation is: to become a advertising and marketing success means you will need to work for it. It becomes part of a complete marketing and advertising plan where each element fits in with the other and not one of the elements can occur on their own.

The following features of first class athletes, can be applied to social media marketing programs:

• Select your targets – athletes arrange their opportunities and usually will have, as a long term aim, the gaining of some big championship or honor.
• Take time out to practice – the schedule includes opportunity to engage in considerable training as they appreciate that to do their sports activity means they have to have to be undertaking their sport regularly
• Request your mom and dad, pals and buddies to assist – robust assistance rejuvenates, captivates and improves the spirit
• Always receive constructive critique from your instructor – what people point out about you could be true and considerable even if it feels uneasy
• Acquire some money via a sponsor – you have to invest funds to be able to become the best
• Be part of a group – sports athletes all round the earth have a team powering them
• When something fails, educate yourself because of it – blunders are part of everyday living. Repeated errors are as a result of laxness
• Get ahead of the masses – your shining event will not be behind closed doors. Openness and transparency are the key.
• Evaluate your actions – monitoring what you do can easily demonstrate you exactly where you have gone wrong and how you might rectify things.

So, let’s apply this to business. All firms should have precise objectives in their advertising and marketing campaigns. This will come about from a group planning function or sequence of events. Plans will need to be examined and changed with respect to results and those about you (that is, clients and prospects) can provide useful live opinions. Inject finances into the project, if the targets are obvious then the investment will be recouped. Mistakes in your method will be outlined by your customers – repair them. Get out there in the social surroundings – the discussion about you is taking place – be a part of it.