The Two Step Process to Brand Building Through Influencer Communities
If Christopher Columbus were a marketer he would still be using Google and Facebook. Let’s veer from the “West Indies” of social media marketing. Below is a map providing a faster route to a land full of sugar and spice and everything nice. The Map to Social Biz Marketing We are all in the experimentation [...]
What Alfred Hitchcock Would Have Said About Facebook (For Business?)
What would Alfred Hitchcock have to say about social media? His film Rear Window (1954) hits the premise of social media on the head. The film is about voyeurism. And as the script reads ”we’ve become a race of Peeping Toms.” Sixty years later I think Alfred would agree. Why are so many of us addicted to [...]
The Social Network: “Good Artists Borrow. Great Artists Steal.”
The other day I saw the Facebook film about Mark Zuckerberg “The Social Network” based on Ben Mezrich‘s 2009 nonfiction book The Accidental Billionaires. Fact or fiction, the film paints a very human portrait of seemingly insensitive Mark Zuckerberg. The film could have easily had a different name such as “Good Artists Borrow. Great Artists [...]
Facebook: The Greatest CRM Platform in the World?
Ok, so it’s not exactly a fully fledged CRM system (yet) but when you compare the information you have on a client or lead in Salesforce with the information that Facebook has on the same person the difference and quality of information is mind-boggling. Not only that but Facebook permeates across the online world like [...]
Where Does Email Fit Within Social CRM?
Before you say anything let me first put some context around why I’m asking this question. On Friday I’m going to be speaking at the Social Email Marketing conference in San Francisco. Almost all of the sessions are going to be focused on email, and then…there’s me. The nice fellow whose going to be talking [...]
An Algorithmic Versus a Heuristic Business Approach (to Customer Engagement)
I’ve been reading Dan Pink’s book, “Drive,” and while I’m only 50 or so pages in, I can say that so far it’s a pretty interesting read. One particular area of the book mentions the difference between algorithmic vs heuristic ways of getting things done. Dan breaks down the difference between algorithmic and heuristic ways [...]
Customer and Company Value, You Must Define Both
In my presentations I oftentimes reference a quote from Gartner which says the following: “By 2010 more than half of companies that have established an online community will fail to manage it as an agent of change, ultimately eroding customer value. Rushing into social computing initiatives without clearly defined benefits for both the company and [...]
Will CRM Sytems and Listening Tools Become One and the Same?
Call me crazy (as many of you have), but I don’t see the separation of “listening tools” and “CRM systems” lasting too much longer. We have actually seen a few acquisitions over the past few months such as Jive acquiring Filtrbox, Lithium acquiring Scout Labs, Meltwater acquiring Buzzgain, Attensity acquiring Biz 360, and several others. [...]
An Open Letter to CRM and Social Media People
Over the past few months (and perhaps more so over the past few weeks) I’ve noticed a growing tension between the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and the social media folks. In some instances this has led to direct name calling in public mediums - which is rather unfortunate. The advent or evolution of CRM into [...]
Business Problems that Social CRM Helps Organizations Solve
(White to move and Mate in 2, can you figure out the answer?) There’s been a lot of talk about what SCRM is (social customer relationship management) and how it should be defined. There has also been a lot of conversation around Social CRM from a technology standpoint in terms of vendor offerings. I’ll admit [...]
How Do You Define Engagement?
I’m at the Alterian “Engaging Times” conference in Chicago which is full of interesting conversations and people. One of the things that struck me at the conference is that nobody defined or explained what “engagement” means. If someone “likes” your facebook page is that engagement? What if they leave a comment on your blog? What [...]
How I Understand Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Keep in mind when reading this that my background IS NOT in Customer Relationship Management (CRM), however as someone who is very involved with Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM) it’s crucial to understand traditional CRM. My background has always been in social and in marketing. First let’s start off with the obligatory wikipedia definition: C [...]
One Hot Mess: Social CRM and E2.0
There’s been a pretty far-ranging discussion on the blogs as of late around Social CRM. Don’t ask me to define “social CRM” – that in and of itself is a blog argument that’s been raging. What you need to know is this: Traditional CRM is about “managing customers”; Social CRM seeks to move the “management” [...]
Would You Pay More for Excellent Customer Service?
A key tenant in Social CRM has always been around providing users with a better experience. In addition to delivering a great product one of the best ways to provide a better experience is through excellent service (yes there are other things). Here’s a simple personal example. In my neighborhood there are two large grocery [...]
How Much of a Relationship Do Your Customers Actually Want?
On the Harvard Business Review, Matt Dixon and Lara Ponomareff wrote a piece that caught my eye, Why Your Customers Don’t Want to Talk to You. Consumers increasingly prefer self-service, and the authors speculate: Maybe customers are shifting toward self service because they don’t want a relationship with companies. While this secular trend could be [...]
