Social Media Buzzes at CRM Evolution 2011

I can’t say the blistering blaze of a Texas sun is the most pleasant greeting when stepping off a plane, but nevertheless it sure is nice to be back in Austin. I just returned from CRM Evolution 2011, an industry conference hosted by CRM Magazine that takes place every year in New York City. For those who are not familiar, CRM Evolution focuses on major trends and innovations in the area of customer relationship management (CRM).

At this year’s meeting of the minds, all of the buzz centered (not surprisingly) around social media. We know it’s out there. We know our customers are using it. We are just unsure of how to properly harness its full power. Most every session turned into an open dialogue with individuals sharing their insights and lessons learned in using social media in marketing, sales and customer service.

I can’t say that we ever reached a definitive answer or an all-encompassing grand theory, but there were several great takeaways that I wanted to share with you.

• Social is necessary. Some companies still disregard social media as a fad and a waste of time and resources. However, social media is hugely important for one primary reason: It allows a business to keep better track of their customers. We have heard it time and time again, but some things bare repeating: you have to be where your customers are. If your customers are on Twitter, you better start coming up with some clever 140-character tweets to communicate with them. Many CRM vendors are responding by merging social into their core feature set. Social is no longer an add-on. It is an essential part of what companies should be doing.
• Strategy is imperative. You have to have a strategy in place before even dipping a toe into the social media pool. This actually holds true for all technology. If you go to the technology first, you may wind up in very expensive trouble. That’s because technology, whether it be software or social media, is simply a tool. And just like any tool, you have know how the tools works to best leverage the right results. Start with your goals, business problems and basic needs. Identify the issue that you want to solve first. With that in mind, you can outline your approach and outline the best way to utilize technology to arrive at a solution.
• Work from the inside out. The idea of social CRM is great and exciting. But if you can’t communicate effectively within your own organization across multiple departments, talking with your customers isn’t going to help your business. You have to start on the inside and address those information silos within your company. Additionally, the cost for messing up on the inside is slightly less than public mistakes. Starting with an internal collaboration tool will not only allow your company to test things out, but bringing it into the enterprise will also help with the culture and silo issue – better preparing you for doing customer-facing activities.
• Content, as always, is king. When it comes to social media, the individual has more control than ever. With a simple click, they can determine the relationship. They either “Like” you, or they don’t. Brian Solis, principle at Altimeter Group, talked about what he calls the “un-Like” movement. Essentially, customers are going to un-Like or disconnect with companies that they perceive as offering no intrinsic value. If your company is not consistently producing compelling content via your social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, blog, etc.), your followers will lose interest and you will lose opportunities.
• SMBs are leading in SCRM. With any new technology, there has to be a guinea pig. With social CRM, small and medium businesses (SMBs) have opted into that role. They are fearless when it comes to social media, ready and willing to try everything at least once. The result? SMBs are the ones moving the needle and enjoying the resulting success. Social media is an excellent tool for the small business owner because it has a lot of potential for driving and retaining business with very little financial risk involved. It is arguably the best way small businesses can compete with larger opponents because it helps them to appear big and make widespread connections. Because of their readiness to adopt and evident success with social media, they are now leading the way, causing larger companies to react and start implementing similar strategies to remain competitive.
• A tweet is just a tweet. One major point of discussion at the conference was how to convert things such as a ‘Like’ or tweet into actionable opportunities. Just because someone starts to follow you on Twitter or hits the ‘Like’ button on your product page does not mean they are ready to actively engage in the buying cycle. The key is to add analytics on top of your social media activities. The addition of analytics allows you to dig down deeper and identify key metrics such as context and intent. These indicators give a much clearer idea of the prospect’s interest, allowing you to take the most appropriate next step.
• Aim for culture consistency. Some companies have done a great job at building a social media presence and following. One in particular that comes to mind is Comcast. They made it their goal to expand customer service to the social sphere and have since garnered much attention for their efforts. However, while Comcast is great at social customer service, they fall short in other mediums. You can’t deliver stellar customer service via Twitter, while delivering mediocre service everywhere else. You have to establish a consistent culture that illustrates you actually value customers at every touch point. Without that, you’re going to fail, no matter how socially active you are.
• Video is the next medium for doing business. The cost of business travel is on the rise, in direct correlation with the cost of fossil fuel. Businesses are starting to find technological alternatives to face-to-face communication, and the one that seems to be taking hold is video. Thanks to sites like YouTube, we have seen the power of video. It is highly viral, easily consumable and fosters interaction. Much like how social media gained momentum through grassroots efforts, video has grown in the same way. We are seeing more companies using this medium not only to communicate with customers, but also to interact and conduct business via tools such as Skype. In terms of cost, it is much cheaper than travel, and there are plenty of young film and animation grads looking for an opportunity. Why not leverage their talent to help grow your business?
• If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. I hinted at this earlier, but one of the great things about social media is that it is a playground for innovation with little risk involved. It is still so new and we have so much left to learn, but that shouldn’t discourage you from exploring what’s possible. The majority of social networks are free to join, effectively negating financial risk. And if you make a concerted effort to educate your organization on a strategy, making sure to involve the IT and legal team, there is little risk of internal downfall as well. This positions companies well to try out different strategies and tools until they can find what works best for their business.
• Change management is the next step. On the third day of the conference, I caught up with Brent Leary, Paul Greenberg and Marshall Lager, who were all reflecting on the conference as a whole. We talked about what worked well this year, as well as what should be addressed in 2012. The consensus was around change management. In almost every session, there was talk of what needs to be done in CRM and the direction we are heading as an industry. There were also a lot of questions around how we’ve arrived at this juncture. According to the experts, change management will be what moves us from point A to point B, and exactly how that unfolds remains to be seen. While we’re waiting, I’m going to go grab an iced coffee and look for another fan…and follower.