From social media to social CRM

Many companies have started to get to grips with social media. Such activities are often located in the areas of marketing, corporate communications or customer service. However, for avant-gardists of this development, especially in the USA, this falls short. They propagate a change from social media to social customer relationships (social CRM, customer relationship management).

Social media is a matter for the boss

One of these thought leaders is Paul Greenberg, who has made a name for himself with his blog and a 700-page standard work on the subject of social CRM. In a keynote speech at an industry conference at the beginning of April, he summed up the dimensions of the change as follows: "Until now, companies communicated with customers so that they would buy their products - now customers control communication about companies." With social media, customers can influence the business performance of companies without them even knowing about it, and they do this via channels that companies cannot control. In addition, the generation of today's top management does not have social media in their blood and therefore have difficulty dealing with it adequately. Customers networked in social networks have power over companies because they have to fear that their messages could spread virally. It is significant that studies (for the USA) now show for the first time that more people communicate via social networks than via email.

Companies need to respond to this by using these channels, where appropriate, to communicate values to customers. And in return, customers would give value back to the companies. It is no longer a question of managing customers, but of enabling them to engage with a company. Thanks to social CRM, there is a better chance of not only acquiring and retaining customers, but also winning them over as ambassadors - and measuring this. It is crucial how companies deal with customers from the outset. Therefore, the products, processes, guidelines and corporate culture must be right and aligned with the social media approach. This kind of strategic orientation affects the entire company and must therefore come from top management.

This kind of social CRM thinking has not yet arrived in Switzerland, as MichaelGisiger, Online Communication & Marketing Manager at PARX, which describes itself as the leading salesforce.com consulting partner in German-speaking countries and is therefore focused on the CRM sector, confirms. "In our experience, social CRM is still too far away for many customers and is often a topic with seven seals."

Companies become media

Mitch Joel is also known as a successful author on the subject of social media and digital marketing and originally worked as a journalist. Many companies fail in the social networks because their content has a marketing and PR flavor and only reports on what the company has to offer. If you want to reach your audience and build valuable relationships, you have to provide regular, open, honest and comprehensive information. Because such characteristics also apply to established media, he has come to the conclusion that if companies increasingly open up in the social media sphere, they will become media. This is where the concept of curating content comes in (see Werbewoche 02, 4.2.2011). For companies, this means developing and implementing a solid content strategy for social media.

Social media is measurable and controllable

If entire companies are to be restructured and new skills acquired because of social media, it is good not to do this blindly. A capability maturity model, such as the one defined by Migros (see Werbewoche 11 of 10.06.2011), can be useful for monitoring and managing the internal introduction. Such a model typically comprises five maturity levels with increasing process maturity, for each of which a number of company-specific key areas are defined with a series of key practices. When it comes to social media, such a model can generally look like this:

Level 1 - Observe: Social media is not yet part of the corporate strategy and there is a lack of established processes. Comments that customers publish about the company in social networks are only partially recognized.
Level 2 - Respond: Customer feedback is responded to in social networks. In parts of the company, fixed processes are established for dealing with social media.
Level 3 - Participate: The processes for social media support are defined and documented and form a coherent whole. The company participates in dialogs in the networks that are of interest to customers and that go beyond pure company interests.
Level 4 - Contribute: The company tells its own stories, revealing character and passion. Social media has been internalized by the company. There are well-defined measurements with which the processes are monitored and controlled.
Level 5 - Cooperation: The company communicates values with its own content and works together with customers. It helps them to achieve their goals and receives information on how to improve products and services. Measurement data is linked to other company processes, allowing weaknesses to be identified and processes to be improved proactively.

For a long time, the question of the return on investment (ROI) of a social media engagement embarrassed practitioners and consultants alike. There are a growing number of solutions for social media monitoring, both commercial (such as Radian 6, Sysomos, Alterian SM2, Meltwater, Ubervu, Lithium) and free (such as Social Mention, Whoistalkin, Howsociable). These are often geared towards the American market and only work to a limited extent here. Because they differ in their performance features, several tools are often used side by side. At the end of June, Google Analytics was expanded to include social media tracking, which means that the most widely used web analytics solution can also be used for this area. We will discuss the topic of social media monitoring in more detail in an upcoming issue. We want to use an online survey (http://www.wemad.org/umfrage) to find out the current status and future intentions in this area - take part!
Christoph J. Walther