Social Media Marketing

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c h a p t e r

9 :

SOCIAL CRM

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Review of the Main Points

The key points covered in Chapter 9 are summarized below. Review these and develop

your own vision and plan for a Social CRM program.

•    Social CRM is less about a new form of CRM than it is a fusion of social tech-

nology—Web 2.0—and the business-centric analytical processes associated

with CRM.

•    Social CRM connects external conversations and ideas to internal functions and

personnel who are able to act upon this information to improve the customer or

constituent experience.

Going back to the purchase funnel plus feedback concept that powers social-

media-based marketing, Social CRM is the primary set of technologies that draws this

feedback—measurably—down into the business. It is through CRM that a planned,

replicable program for managing the conversations that occur on the Social Web can

be implemented.

Hands-On: Social Objects

Review both of the following and apply these to your business or organization as you

create your plan for integrating social technology into your fundamental processes.

1. Review the Sun Microsystems, SAS Institute, and IBM/Lotus products and
   associated case studies: While these are all large organizations, the principles
   of Social CRM are sufficiently well demonstrated that they can be applied to
   almost any business.


2. Review the general toolsets in the tables in this chapter, and take note of the
   order in which specific tools or technologies are applied. As with social-media-
   based marketing in general, the implementation process begins not with technol-
   ogy but rather with business objectives and strategy.

Hands-On: Apply What You’ve Learned

Apply what you’ve learned in this chapter through the following exercises:

1. If you haven’t done so already, look at the social computing policy examples at
   the Altimeter site. In addition, visit the sites of firms or organizations like yours
   to see what they have done. Imitation—followed with an in-house legal review—
   is the sincerest form of ... getting there faster!


2. Work with your IT or other applicable department to design a pilot program for
   internal collaboration. The exercise will challenge your organization, so choose
   a small project and recruit enthusiastic volunteers.


3. After completing the first two exercises, prepare and deliver a presentation to your
   colleagues (or customers, if you are a consulting firm or agency) on Social CRM.