Social Media Marketing

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c h a p t e r

5:

SOCIAL T

ECHNOLOGY AND B

USINESS D

ECISIONS

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Operations Marketing

Social Media

Awareness ConsiderationPurchase

Figure 5.7 The Purchase Funnel and Operations

Social CRM picks up on this and formally recognizes that the conversations

circulating on the Social Web started in, for example, Operations but then exerted

themselves upon Marketing (by encouraging or dissuading sales). Again, this is a very

different process than the more or less unidirectional flow of outbound messages asso-

ciated with traditional campaigns.

This is why Social CRM is so powerful and so timely. Connecting customers

into the business, and understanding their perspective and what attracts or repels them

from your brand, product, or service is a path to long-term success. Social CRM com-

bines the insights of Fred Reichheld’s Net Promoter —itself a benchmark metric for

long-term success—with quantitative tools and a flexible methodology for defining and

evolving your business.

Map the Social Graph

Once you’ve got a handle on what is being said, the next step in implementing a Social

CRM program is understanding who said it. By “who said it” I’m not referencing the

personal details of a specific individual, though you may in some cases be able to dis-

cern this information from actual customer data or a similar source.

Rather, I’m referring to profile and social graph data, understanding who is talk-

ing about you by also understanding the other places where this same person publishes

content and with whom it is shared. By seeing a profile in the context of that individual’s

social graph, you get a much more complete picture of individual motivation, influence,

reach, and connectedness that allows you to prioritize your next steps in reaching out

and responding (or not) to that specific individual.

The social graph itself—first covered in Chapter 2 and explored in detail later

in Chapter 11, “The Social Graph,”—defines the social links that exist between people

within social networks. As well, the social graph includes pointers to the various

other places where this individual publishes or otherwise participates. Social CRM

and the more focused source identification tools navigate this social graph to create a