Are you satisfying your customers’ needs? Social media has become a powerful tool for engaging customers, but many brands are still feeling their way around the components of social strategy, from engagement on social networks to targeted social media monitoring. Enter Altimeter Group’s Brian Solis. In a Mashable post, he shares 14 social media strategy best practices based on what the most successfully engaged brands are doing. Here’s a review of 3:

• Build a framework for listening. Brian is on target when he writes “The best listeners make the best conversationalists.” It’s hard to connect with customers when you have no idea—or, sometimes worse, a fuzzy idea—of what they’re saying. Invest in online intelligence so you can jump into the conversation in a meaningful way.
• Know the workflow. Anyone who works in a busy office, whether it has 3 employees or 300, understands the value of a clear workflow. Brian advises establishing a workflow to ensure the right staff member can engage and respond when appropriate.
• Create a decision flowchart. Social media happens in real-time, making it crucial that brand representatives have the tools they need to make informed decisions regarding comments, posts, and tweets. You won’t be able to foresee every scenario from the get-go, but regular assessments will allow you to tweak the flowchart, giving the social media team the best chance for engagement success.

What best practices can you share?