CIOIN

Social Media Understanding customers and their context is crucial for developing a successful online strategy, Gartner has said. A key tool to enable this understanding is social media.

"People are different depending on their context. That is why it is so important for you right now to engage—engage with the idea of tapping into social networks, to push out information, but also to listen and respond."Even if you do not know exactly how you are going to exploit the information, entertain the idea of social media as part of your online strategy going forward, and the ideas will come," said Mick MacComascaigh, research director at Gartner. He said that in order to have a successful online strategy, businesses need to "get over the hesitancy" they might have about social media."An excellent, and successful online strategy, is one that considers—where do you want to take your organization and with whom will you be interacting?" he said.

Not looking at the wider business objective first is a common problem for companies, MacComascaigh said.

"The number one pitfall is that they [businesses] are focusing on the technical too soon. They are burned from their first attempts and playing it safe. "However, if the same companies focus on customer retention and loyalty, they will have a much more successful online strategy," he said.

In order to understand their customers, MacComascaigh believes that companies should not aim for just their target audiences, but also the individual. Companies therefore have to have an online framework that is agile and adaptable to allow them to respond to customer trends or demands more finely.