The Intriguing Realm of Social Media, Social Intelligence and Social CRM

How many of you have complained on a company’s social media platform, and got a response? If you haven’t used the social channel so far, you might be in for a pleasant surprise. Companies are getting increasingly friendly with social networks and using them day in and out to interact with their customers, and for customer relationship management. A few times when I've reached out on social networks, my issues were resolved in no time. Companies are laying a lot of impetus on their "social reputation"

 

The past decade has seen one major change in the field of corporate communications. It is no more company-centric but rather consumer-centric. The focus is on saying what and how, the consumer wants to hear. This new development means that marketers need to know their consumers, listen to them and understand them. The need to interact with consumers on their preferred channels at a time convenient to them has forced corporations to embrace social media networks. It is a huge cultural shift enabled by the collaborative philosophy of Web 2.0. 

 What is Social Intelligence?

Since social media is driving CRM, companies have to develop social intelligence to interact with the consumers to make a real impact. It is not just about meeting consumer expectations, but differentiating experiences, having the ability to rise above the noise out there. Over the years, traditional CRM has quietly evolved into social CRM because of an increasing use of social media in corporate communications. How does a company achieve social networking maturity and harness the tools of social CRM- is a common question many small businesses wonder about. The process is complex: from establishing a mere presence, to managing online communities and finally getting benefited via Social ROI.

•  By leveraging social customer insights gathered from numerous touch points in social interactions, a company can implement a sound social CRM strategy that will drive decision-making, maximize performance and surpass the competition.

•  By aggregating information from social platforms, mobile and external data, a clear picture of potential clients or people of interest can be attained, leading to smarter marketing. This valuable information can also complement internal operations. 

• By encouraging and facilitating meaningful social interactions, strong relationships can be established. Marketers must remember that Push marketing is not the ideal conversation for social media. Consumers have specific objectives when they interact with brand. It could be incentives, entertainment, problem-solving, knowledge, and so forth. Unless those objectives are met, these interactions will not lead to any results.

•  By aggregating data from multiple social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram etc) with mobile, and external data  like surveys, national stats etc, one can find a whole lot of information about any one person.    

  
It is indeed intriguing to know how much data is available out there that can precisely pin-point people of interest to a company that has access to the right tools and tactics to derive that data.With a 360° view of a single customer, social CRM attains a new height allowing marketers to position their products much more effectively and participate in the customer’s decision making process.  

Are You Listening to Social Media?

With millions of organizations and professionals on a dozen different social media platforms, one wonders what is happening to all that they are jabbing. Is someone listening too?

Social Media has become one of the greatest tools to get our message across at a low budget and least amount of time. To this end, it is being used and over-used phenomenally. To the extent, that there is so much content being generated that the content itself is losing value. The waterfall of tweets and posts and pictures and what not!

In the rat race to " be heard", we often forget "to hear". In the business world, when a company hires a social media professional, the expectations are : a few thousand tweets, a few hundred pictures, a few thousand followers, and mentions and retweets, and share, so on and forth. While it all makes sense, let us not forget, engaging is not limited to communication, especially if it is a one-way communication.

Listening is an important part of engaging with our clients, our communities, our market. Social Media not only allows but actually encourages us to participate actively in the lives of our clients and our market, which in turn creates a relationship. This relationship is the key to engagement.

Here are some tips on "active listening on Social Media`

1. Spend some time checking tweets on your Timeline. Otherwise, search using Hashtag. Hashtag will help you look for tweets on topics that interest you most and possibly connect with those tweeters.
2. Respond to Tweets when you think you could make a good contribution to the conversation, or even, start a conversation.
3. Mentions are a great way of recognizing other tweeters around you. Mention others at least a few times in a day.
4. Introduce yourself to people who are of interest, and especially if you have new followers. Acknowledging their entry into your twitter-sphere will make them feel valued. It is another way of seeding engagement.
5. RETWEET as often as you can and better if you can add your comments or ask a relevant question.
6. Make sure your tweets are of interest to twitter networks.

The more you tweet and you more you listen to the twitter content around you, the more you can engage with your networks. With Web 2.0, your real worth is your followers. They are your future treasure!