Everyone and their pet is on social media these days, and so are smart businesses. Companies around the globe have found that being on sites like Facebook and Twitter has helped them significantly in terms of what is referred to as “social CRM.” Social CRM, also known as “social customer relationship management,” allows companies to make use of these social networks to foster a deeper connection and understanding with their potential leads and customers by being able to engage and interact with them.
A New Level Of Market Monitoring
Another way of looking at social CRM would be to see it as a way for businesses to monitor their visitors, their leads, their customers, and even their competition. Online savvy businesses know that they need to continuously monitor Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and any other social media networks for mentions of their company, their products, their services, or themselves.
The Benefits Of Monitoring Your Market
Keeping an eye on social media sites on a regular basis is good for your business in a number of ways, such as:
Peer To Peer Customer Support: Visitors and customers alike are growing to love using social media as a way to voice their questions and concerns to companies. In fact, 40% of consumers now believe that social media has actually improved customer support and many are now using it as their preferred way to get in touch with a company.
Idea Management: Wondering how you can improve upon a product or service? Or maybe you’re looking to add to your line of existing offers? Allow your online fans and followers to inspire you and even directly tell you exactly what you want from your company so that you can deliver.
Market Research: Social media has got to be one of the least expensive ways to conduct market research today. You can run surveys, polls, and even contests to help get the information that you want and need to make better business decisions. Most individuals will happily and willingly participate.
Product Launch: Think about it—getting on Facebook alone opens up your company to potentially billions of people. If you construct a share-worthy post or a tweet, then your fans and followers will “share” and “retweet” that post about your exciting new product or service, and their fans and followers may “share” and “retweet” that post, and so on and so forth. Your reach is almost limitless when it comes to social media!
Brand Reputation Management: Every company hopes that the comments left about them online are positive, but the reality is that you’ll have at least one dissatisfied customer at some point causing a bit of a stir on your social media pages. With social CRM, you can quickly nip any concerns or issues in the bud before they get out of hand. If a negative comment is well handled, then everyone else on the Internet will see how respectful and thoughtful your company’s responses are to that negative comment, and at the end of the day, you can actually end up gaining points because of that negative comment.
