Success Begins with Knowledge

May 7, 2013

Any retailer—in fact, any business—only succeeds by knowing its customers. Especially in today’s data rich world, knowing what your customers like and dislike can help you gear your offerings to what they want to see and buy.

The same holds true for your social connections. The information you need is out there so get it and use it.

Part 6 of Untangling the Social Web, the newest study from the Coca‑Cola Retailing Research Council of North America, examines many of the key steps companies need take to have a successful approach to external communication on the social web. A big piece of that comes from knowing the activity of your followers.

For instance: examine the demographics of your social web connections and compare those to your overall shopper base. Also, look at the demographics of your active followers in contrast to the inactive. The insights might help you better gear messages as well as which networks you use. Keep in mind that many social networking websites provide easy access to such information. You might have staffers who can help you through this process or you can find vendors to take on this task.

Exercises on issues like this can be found throughout Part 6 of the study. Download it for free at http://bit.ly/UntanglingtheSocialWeb.

Michael Sansolo

Research Director

Coca‑Cola Retailing Research Council of North America