Great review & extension. Love hearing what people think about the stuff I write. Appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts.

Still stand by my 3 phased approach; primarily because the idea of creating a socially enabled e-commerce site prior to introducing the e-tailer to the social web, opens the e-tailer up for catastrophic failure if they don’t understand how to build and focus a community.

I agree that a good digital/ social agency can help steer them in the right direction; but the brand needs to be prepared to engage with its audience.

I still think spending the money to socially enable a site where the brand hasn’t established enough social equity, and the users aren’t prepared for social commerce could potentially deliver a significantly lower ROI than following the 3 phased approach.