Describe the three stages of the social media engagement process.

The three-stage process involves listening to what customers have to say, analyzing the information available through various touchpoints, and implementing (or doing)social media tactics to excite customers. From a marketing research point of view, companies can learn a lot about their customers by listening to (and monitoring)what they say on their social networks, blogs, review sites, and so on. Similar to being at a party or in class, it is best to listen before engaging in a conversation. Listening can help marketers determine their digital marketing objectives.Fortunately, the companies that help facilitate listening also provide analytic tools to assess what customers are saying about the firm and its competitors. There are three main categories of analysis used for understanding data collected from social media. First, it is important to determine the amount of traffic using their sites, visiting their blogs, or tweeting about them. Second, although knowing how many people are using a firm's social media is important, it is even more critical to learn who those visitors are, what they are doing, and what engages and excites them. Third, some companies want to analyze data that come from other sites, such as measuring where people have come from to get to the company's site.Even the greatest analysis has little use if firms fail to implement what they have learned from analyzing their social and mobile media activity. That is, social media may be all about relationships, but ultimately, firms need to use their connections to increase their business. They might launch a new Facebook campaign, actively blog, or provide mobile offers.