If you’re reading this blog, then it would be safe to say that you aren’t asking the “why” or “should” we be using social media. What you’re looking for are ways to answer the “where” and “how.”

Companies should follow, not lead their customers in the social media arena. I read a post recently from Jay Baer, one of social media’s thought leaders, Four Ways to Find Out if Your Customers are Active With Social Media, and I thought I’d share some of the highlights:

• Hire a Spy - There are companies out there that track down your customers and see what they are on and to what level (scary thought). Flowtown and Rapleaf are two of the leaders.
• Ask - It’s too obvious, isn’t it? In your regular business conversations, ask if they are active. If you have an online lead generation form, add data fields for LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
• E-mail Behavior - Add links to your social outposts in your e-mails.
• Gmail Stalking - Twitter, Facebook and other outposts have incorporated a function that allows you to see if they are using their services and invite them to connect with you.

If you like this post, you might like:

How B-to-B Marketers Can Make Good Use Out of Facebook Fan Pages.

Follow Companies on Twitter: Keep Tabs on Your Competition or Customers.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 at 9:00 am and is filed under Marketing Tips, Marketing Tools, Social Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.