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Social CRM requires meaningful analytics to be effective

Social CRM trends have always followed behind broader social networking trends. Businesses look at new ways friends and families interact and find a model for how they’d like to interact with customers.

But by modeling the common interactions between acquaintances online, social CRM has largely been superficial. A social CRM strategy must not only work to collect data from social networking sites, but be able to analyze it in a thorough and meaningful way.

The trend towards analytics is only just now emerging. In a recent article on social CRM trends from CRMBuyer, Denis Pombriant writes that many enterprises have adopted social technologies for business use but the number that use analytics to evaluate that data lags behind. Pombriant suggests that gap will close. “The disparity between data accumulation and data analytics is temporary,” he writes. “As an organization accumulates customer data, without basic analytics, most of the data is useless.”

Among the most recent offerings to act on this social CRM trend is Cisco SocialMiner, released this past Friday. Cisco SocialMiner is designed to let companies search pubic information on Facebook and Twitter. The goal, according to an article from e-Commerce Times, is to put the information found through search into an operational model. The software facilitates the creation of dashboards and workflow algorithms to help social networking information be organized and analyzed.

The Cisco press release makes no mention of cloud computing. Some viewers, though, believe that Social CRM is a ripe target for SaaS providers. Harish Kotadia of Customer THINK provides several reason. First is that social media sites generate to much data for a local CRM system to store and analyze efficiently. Second is that the rapid evolution of social networking sites means that an on-premise system would require constant upgrades, whereas a SaaS CRM tool can be upgraded more easily by the provider. Both of these reasons add up to easier integration for the user.

Social CRM Trends: Resources and information

Social CRM, done properly, can help businesses monitor brand image and customer sentiment and allow marketing professionals to respond to customer concerns in new ways. Below you’ll find more resources about Social CRM.

What is Social CRM? (Social Media Examiner)

Read this thorough definition of Social CRM, with easy-to-understand diagrams. The author begins with this concise definition: “Social CRM is a strategy. The strategy is based around customer engagement and interactions, with transactions being a byproduct.”

The Evolution of the Social CRM process (CloudAve)

This post from CloudAve looks at how social CRM has evolved over time. The writer suggests that what was once the simple injection of Facebook and Twitter data into the basic CRM loop evolved into complex web of feedback and response that begins with action from the customer community, not the provider.

Social CRM: the inner meaning (ZDNet)

Michael Krigsman of ZDNet takes a look at how social CRM came about. He refers to a “culture of participation,” wherein customers, empowered by the pooling of opinion on the internet, were able to wield more influence than ever before. Customers had to be listened to, and social CRM was born.

Why your company needs to embrace social CRM (Mashable.com)

The author here argues in favor of social CRM adoption. Social CRM is necessary, she suggests, because customers are getting tired of traditional marketing techniques. Customers who make effective use of social networks and applications expect direct interaction with vendor and to have their opinions heard, whether positive or negative.

The 3 three threats to social CRM (destinationCRM.com)

The author here looks at obstacles that can hinder social CRM adoption. These three threats are the need for social algorithms, the need to analyze both structured and unstructured data, and the challenge of implementing an enterprise-wide social marketing initiative.

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