Think Customers: The 1to1 Blog

After surveying 10,000 consumers, Forrester's ladder, which previously included six social behavior classifications (creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators, and inactives) now features a new rung--conversationalists, people who tweet or update their social network status weekly.

With rich demographics (56 percent of conversationalists are female with an average age of 36, and average income of $81,200), it would benefit marketers to start listening to this group to determine how best to reach out to them.

Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff and author of the report, reminds us that we cannot engage with customers in social environments until we know how they use them to talk about brands and products. To leverage the conversations, Bernoff suggests these tips:

* Use a listening platform to monitor online conversations.

* Test interactions before going public with them.

* Follow your customers to new types of interactions.

* Use their behaviors as inspiration and set up something viral, like a recent Facebook campaign did that asked "What color bra are you wearing?"

Finally to be effective at social media campaigns, Bernoff says that a marketing application must be a valuable experience for customers and should accomplish a marketing objective like spreading awareness or word of mouth.