The use of social media is now a must in business.

Using networking tools enables us to become closer than ever to our customers, suppliers and partners.  It helps us to really understand what they like, how they like to work, what they are thinking about, what makes our contacts tick.

All this information is critical to any organisations success.  By feeding this output into a CRM system, the organisation is empowering all of their people to get to understand their contacts and help to build better relationships, making the process of “doing business” slicker.

There may be no quick sale or decision through social media, but by networking in this way, long term prospects can be kept in touch – lightly.

Social media networking can really shape a design process with customers.  The supplier can really understand what the potential customer, or existing customer is wishing to achieve, subtly; whilst the customer can start to understand the packaging of the product.  What goes into what they are purchasing and start to understand and live the benefits.

This alone, can save costs, and make companies easier to do business with.  Not only that – it will lay the foundations to build great relationships to stand the test of time.

Social media networking can also aid an organisation to exceed its customer expectations and thus maximise the satisfaction of customers.  This will help to propel an organisation through referrals, testimonials and word of mouth.  That said there must be a moment of truth to carry the customers through to satisfaction.

So start blogging, networking and shouting out across social media and start to reap the benefits.  But don’t forget to feed the valuable competitive advantage information back to your CRM system, to empower your staff and reap the full benefit.