24 Oct, 2011

It’s Time to Stop Treating Social Like Mass Media

Posted by Rich Fleck | Categories: Social CRM | Tags: Social Data Integration, Social Segmentation, Social Targeting

Move to a True Social CRM Strategy

With Facebook reaching 800 million users, consumer adoption of social media has grabbed the attention of most marketers.  It’s hard to read a marketing article today that doesn’t mention social media – it’s the topic of most conversations.  It’s no longer an emerging media – it’s an established presence in the minds of consumers. (46% of people globally log in to a social network daily.)

In our rush to establish a social presence, marketers built Facebook pages, created apps, and started Tweeting.    However, consumers now expect more. To move to the next level, marketers should apply true CRM tactics to drive measurable results and sustain long-term consumer engagement.

Start Segmenting and Targeting

In the rush to grow a Facebook fan base, little attention has been paid to how to activate this social audience after they become a fan.  The good news is that the explosion in social media has also created a rich set of data to learn more about your customers and prospects.  And social marketing platforms have enabled marketers to target customers based on Like, Share, and Comment behavior.  Now is the time to apply CRM lessons and start sending targeted messages to your Facebook audience – and stop treating your Fans as one “faceless” segment.

 

  • Establish a customer-focused measurement framework:   To date, marketers have primarily focused on page-centric metrics to measure social progress.  Knowing the number of Fans or number of Followers is important – but it is not actionable.  To really drive social performance, it’s more important to determine who is engaging:  Who are the most active Fans or Followers?  Which Fans drive the most response to posts?  Which Followers have higher social or vertical influence?  Creating customer-focused metrics often isn’t easy but it is the best way to get to the number we are all after:  Social ROI.

 

  • Integrate social data into customer database:  To really accelerate the growth of social as a part of our marketing strategy, we need to integrate social data into our biggest data asset – the customer database.  For example, connecting Fan behavior to customer value will reveal new insights and new marketing opportunities – new ways to activate audiences and expand social audience growth.   In addition, savvy marketers who have integrated this data are now integrating social insights to improve performance in other channels / media like email, display, mobile, and search. 

Moving your social strategy from mass marketing to targeted social CRM should take place in phases – starting with simple CRM connection points and moving to more advanced integration.  As social moves from emerging media to a key marketing vehicle, it will be important to stay away from “shiny objects” and focus on the elements that allow you to get to know your social audience and make smart social CRM decisions.