Interacting with customers via social media is no longer enough – organisations must do more.

Providing customers with a specific channel for feedback is essential and can boost your brand.

For instance, Adobe has introduced its digital enterprise platform (ADEP) to strengthen it’s customer experience management (CEM) strategy.

ADEP is intended to allow an extremely interactive and engaging two-way customer engagement interface. Whilst also providing customers with a feedback loop, allowing organisations to use the feedback to make their websites more user-friendly and engaging, and consequently improve profits.

Engaging customers can also be done by using customer recommendation engines, as seen on the Amazon website. However it is important to remember that whilst enabling customers to comment and give honest feedback is beneficial, feedback may sometimes be negative.

It is essential whether the comments and feedback are negative or positive to respond where necessary and thank consumers for feedback.

Using social media as part of a business strategy is indeed demanding, and can’t be identified with as a single approach. It has to be accepted that the social media environment is changing at a rapid rate, and the public social sites such as Facebook and Twitter must be embraced.

The broader the reach of an organisations social media, the more difficult it is to control what’s being talked about, but the organisation must be able to respond to ensure the reputation of the brand is protected.

Social media needs to be accepted and embraced as part of existing consumer communications.

Guaranteeing that social CRM systems are pulled together and works for the organisation and the consumer is essential for success.