Social CRM

140 characters may seem morsel-sized but billions of them have managed to put Twitter on everyone’s radar from celebrities to marketers. What began as an experimental side project in 2006 has quickly ascended the ranks to become one of the world’s best known and most utilized social networks. Not to mention the world’s first micro-blog and real-time news feed.

Social media guru Jeremiah Owyang has done extensive research on how companies organize and manage their social CRM and how these companies have adapted to the rapidly evolving social media landscape. In his research, he addresses how companies structure and manage their social CRM initiatives, how they integrate their sites with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, and how companies staff their social CRM teams. He discusses where to allocate your funds to enable growth both through advertising and by building an army of external brand advocates. In this article, we will discuss the major learnings from Owyang’s research.

Social CRM offers a different set of challenges from those related to common IT or CRM projects. In order to achieve success it’s important that people learn and understand these differences enabling them to make decisions for their own organization.

Interpreting brand metrics in accordance to transactional data can be quite a challenge. Don’t let the term “metrics” fool you. Just as brand, creative and visuals live in the subjective world – “brand metrics” can as well. This makes it all the more imperative to understand the fast-paced opportunity and how we can redefine the way we get results through social media.