MUST READ for merchants regarding luring customers via social media

Here's just a small sampling below:

While some companies may still be simply arranging their goods on virtual shelves and hoping customers will show up, that concept is beginning to go the way of the old general store.
Instead, it’s as if the general store has come to us. Just like the old days, you can stand around chatting about what you’re looking to buy, listen to friends and neighbours talk about their recommendations, and maybe the store owner has saved a new scarf that just came in because he knows it’s your favourite colour.
“One of the things that is changing or has started to change is something that didn’t exist 10 years ago,” said David Alston, vice-president marketing and community of Radian6, a Vancouver social media company. “It’s the concept of companies lining up for customers, as opposed to customers lining up for companies, the idea of customers now being able to go out and express their needs, and companies listening and reaching out to see how they can help them.”
Social networks are making that possible, and corporations are turning to the networks with various degrees of dexterity, much like they reacted to the arrival of e-mail.

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"How social media have globalized the shopping experience~The social Web changes the way we shop, as companies start to line up for customers"

By Gillian Shaw, Vancouver Sun December 13, 2009