I came across a great story that clearly illustrates the importance of communication of social media strategies within a company.

When effective, social media can do very well with getting customers in the door and exposing your business to new customers.

However, once they're in the door, you have to keep them in and wanting to come back.

In the story below, originally posted on Chief Marketers' site, the restaurant did a great job of getting a new customer interested via Yelp, and, being a social media savvy customer, they thought to use FourSquare to check in and see if there were any deals.

While it all ended well and created a fun experience trying to beat the clock, it shows that the employees were unaware of the promotion and the customer almost lost out on a good deal. 

From the article....

Sitting outside at a table recently on a warm evening at The Chop House in Miami, I asked my niece to "check in" to see if any discounts were being offered. She had "yelped" the restaurant for us and we were happy so far.

Up popped a promotion for a free glass of wine with a 60-second timer that began counting down the seconds to get it ordered before the offer expired.

She got excited and so too did the others at the table, who all began looking for and waving at the waiter as my niece kept shouting, 36 seconds, 28 seconds, 15 seconds, hurry up!

The waiter arrived in due time but knew nothing about the offer she showed him on her phone. He had never seen such an offer before and didn't really understand how it all worked. Even so, he happily delivered the free glass of wine.

It was a fun experience for all of us, but a wake up call for marketers who sign on to location-based check-in services to make sure employees get educated about the promotions so there's no disconnect between the brand and the customer.

What  would it have taken to get your marketing department to talk to your sales department?