Social CRM Begins to Penetrate the CRM Marketplace

CRM’s integration with social media is creating a new social element in traditional CRM processes: Social CRM.  Social CRM enables a business to connect customer conversations and relationships from social networks to the CRM process.

Social CRM will augment traditional CRM, but it will not replace it.  ISM sees Social CRM becoming integrated in CRM platforms and systems for a 360-degree view of customers. Organizations can now communicate with customers based on their preferred social media site. The ultimate goal of engaging the customer through Facebook, Twitter and other sites will be to build trust and brand loyalty.  Social media has given the ability to create a one-to-one relationship regardless of the geographical location.  This type of close relationship based on mutual trust is not possible through traditional CRM channels such as telephone or email communication.

In addition, many deployments of Social CRM are taking place in corporate marketing departments as part of their brand management, whether it is maintaining a presence on Facebook or Twitter or monitoring activity related to the brand.  Traffic to various sites, blogs and social communities represent the fastest growing areas of the Internet and have recently surpassed the amount of Internet traffic associated with emails.

As part of the social network marketplace phenomena, consumers are now sharing their experiences and opinions online on a massive scale.  Nielsen reports that 34% of Americans online have used social networks to comment about a product, company or brand and 80% of Americans are using social networks to make decisions related to what they buy.  Social networks are powerful for discovering what potential customers are saying about products/services, along with their competitors.  Consequently, social media monitoring is a huge investment area for companies because it can provide them with a quick, unbiased view of the customer voice.

Many organizations are actively using Social CRM to engage customers, fortify relationships and increase revenue.

And, here is the proof:

• A recent Nielsen study found that social communities reach more Internet users (67%) vs. Email (65%).
• eMarketer cites the percentage of Fortune 500 companies using social media has increased from 57% in 2008 to 91% during the year 2010.
• Research firm Eloqua projects that Social Media ad spending will increase at a 6% annual rate from $1.4 billion in 2009 through 2011.
• And finally, Gartner predicts that by 2015, social marketing processes will influence at least 80% of consumer discretionary spending.