For most business people, social media appears to be something exotic, even alien. Partly due to the way it is presented in the media and largely because their “older media” companies are still not sure how to sell it. There is a big temptation to see it as a completely new paradigm. Of course it isn’t. It still homo sapiens communicating. And by the way, many of those homo sapiens are your old customers communicating.
Social CRM got me excited from the beginning. I always loved CRM systems, even when they were clunky, tiring and meant more data entry for everyone. If the customer is king, you had better make sure you know how the king likes his eggs cooked in the morning. Just as we strived to find ways to unify what an organization knew about a contact into CRM, Social CRM systems try to unify the social media activity with whatever else you know about a contact. XeeSM was the first system I saw which had the concept of “touch”, in a product called “Flights”. This is an interaction via social media which isn’t a sales pitch, but a deliberate attempt to get in somebody’s peripheral vision in order to prepare the ground. Social media is ideal for this. You just need to “like” their photo on Facebook and they are reminded you exist. Which makes the next telephone call, less of a cold call.
But you still feel lost. It is as if all your customers are suddenly out of control, tweeting, blogging and posting anything they want. It is scary and intimidating. I am famously quoted as saying more than 15 years ago that “if you want to sell to the Greek market, your CRM system needs 11 million entries. For starters.” Sure, that CEO of your main customer is important and you might want to remember his wife’s birthday and kids’ names. But those 11,000 people that “liked” your offer on Facebook yesterday and then clicked through to it on your website might be more important. If only you knew them…
