How John Lewis is using four of the main social media networks appeared in an e-consultancy post a few days ago.

It is instructive for any business to see how these channels are being used by such a large online retailer. Not just to see what they do well but also where they might do better.

Many of their approaches and tactics mentioned here could be used by any business to improve the return on resources and budget deployed getting social with potential customers and clients. Equally the areas weakness are easy to remedy particularly in a more nimble smaller organisation where there is less corporate inertia.

I was particularly struck by the observation that they take the weekend off only working Monday to Friday which seems to reflect the overall feeling that John Lewis hasn’t really got it in some areas and is avoiding some of the “social” in social media.

Take a look at you own social media activity and see if you measure up. Its not about the scale of your organisation but getting under the skin of what your audience wants and enjoys from a particular channel and making sure that your efforts are aligned with that.

Getting it right means that not only will you feel the social love but you will also achieve a better return.

See article here