Social CRM envisions a company interacting with its customers, and providing what can be perceived as casual interactions between a company and its customers. The interactivity involved is crucial in implementing an effective social media strategy, and ignoring that facet of social media misses the point entirely. All too often, I have seen companies implement a strategy that treats social media as another means of direct marketing. Companies will automate their Tweets months in advance in order to market-and-forget, ignoring the fact that customers and prospects will respond to those Tweets or even ask questions. When any social medium is used, someone needs to be responsible for interactions.
Log into Twitter daily to see and respond to DMs or replies. If a customer has a good insight, RT it to your followers. Interact with people on your corporate Facebook page. Above all, keep in mind that social media is a conversational medium, not an advertising medium. This does not mean that social interactions are not aimed towards increasing business, but rather that a social strategy should be aimed at utilizing the media for all its worth.
Social CRM will provide more tools to facilitate these interactions. Tweets will show up on a Marketing Manager’s dashboard, who will then assign them to sales reps. A Help Desk tech will be notified of instances where the company’s product is mentioned, and will be given an ability to respond. It is critical that companies include these interactions in their planning, and not miss the opportunity that Social CRM offers.
Related posts:
- Social CRM For Small Businesses
- How Will Social Media Be Leveraged for CRM?
- Social CRM Defined
- Is Salesforce.com’s approach to Social CRM Correct?
While I agree with what you’ve stated I do want to mention that this is a narrow view of all that social CRM will bring to the table. Paul Greenberg’s latest post on Social CRM covers the topic in great detail, read here:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/crm/?p=829
With that said, you hit upon a crticial point that people should not forget, this is not e-mail. Companies often fail to understand social media, or twitter, and treat it as e-mail and only use it for direct marketing. It is okay to do some marketing but you have to provide value in return, it cannot be just about spamming your message.
If interested, check out my latests post where I explain my recommendations for building community on twitter the right way:
http://www.efactor.com/p/blogs/id=491
Thanks for sharing.
John
http://twitter.com/JohnFMoore