Social Profiles as the Heart of a Social CRM

Businesses are using the openness of the real-time web to engage and interact with consumers to enable a new level of personalization. These businesses have already realized that consumers are in the driver’s seat of the brand relationship, and cultivating that relationship by serving the social consumer’s needs will go much further than simple messaging and brand impressions.

Social media has created a new type of communications channel where people openly discuss and share their activities, moods, likes, whereabouts and interests. Where this once was shared in face-to-face encounters amongst friends, social networks now enable the open sharing -- and re-sharing -- of information, opinions and consumer-generated brand messaging. How can businesses harness this information and create a powerful knowledgebase and improve community relationships? Through a Social CRM (SCRM) system.

The idea of a Social CRM grew out of the traditional notion of an enterprise/B2B CRM system. There is a great deal of discussion happening on whether a SCRM system should be used for social interactions focused on improving customer service or whether it’s the next evolutionary step in consumer marketing database systems. In my mind one can’t exist without the other. A Social CRM system can only be effective with both appropriate business processes and a foundation of solid information and intelligence.

In this article I’ll focus on the heart of a Social CRM system -- the social profile -- that is the knowledge base, the consumer data that provides the intelligence to drive action, interaction and value from the outreach, engagement, marketing and service activities surrounding the implementation and use of a consumer Social CRM system.

Social Profile Elements

A consumer’s social profile is a sophisticated collection of interrelated information pieces. One of its key elements is the collection of one or more of the contact points for a single person such as email address, Twitter ID, mobile number, Facebook ID and so on.

These multiple contact points enable us to identify and rectify all the social identities of a single consumer; once this occurs, we have set the basis for developing deep social intelligence on our contacts -- intelligence that can drive true value and return over the life of the relationship with the consumer.

Social Profile Complete

From this point on, the SCRM’s processes can monitor the real-time web and collect activity, comments and conversations relevant to the brand. The business can gather knowledge on each person’s attitudes towards them as well as the general sentiment and trends across the brand, products or market. Each contact’s activities, engagement and reach can also be ranked and rated. The wealth of data collected can be presented in a variety of ways on an individual, group and overall basis, as a snapshot or as trends over time.

While the gathering of social contact points and activity data is critical, even more critical to the social business is the development of a lasting and trusted relationship with the consumer. Today’s brand relationships are being strictly paced by the individual consumer. Brands can utilize consumer preferences, again storing that data within each consumer social profile, to adhere to each individual’s wishes and to connect in the way they want in the frequency they have described.

Consumer tolerance for “brand SPAM,” especially delivered across social networks, is low; without strict permission standards, the opportunity to drive brand relationships with consumers will end -- and end badly (and publicly). The social profile, and consumer preferences, are critical to brand strategies for consumer communications and marketing.

Exercising the Social Profiles

Social profiles can be used and mined for a variety of uses within the organization. This can touch most every aspect with a company -- customer service, sales, product development and, of course, marketing. Customer service can look within a customer’s profile to see current external social conversations, conversation history and brand sentiment to assist them in servicing an issue. Sales can use social profiles to drive repeat or add-on opportunities. Product research and development may mine conversational histories for trends and thoughts around products and services. Unsolicited, unfiltered comments around the brand’s products and services may take some thick skin, but they provide a real view on true market perception.

For marketing, social profiles allow for detailed targeting with appropriate communications and calls to action. Social profiles can be used to segment the database and select precise targets and to deliver very focused messaging. By analyzing behavioral trends and activities, marketers can get real-time feedback on what messages are resonating today and adapt those that aren’t. The result is higher response rates, more engaged consumers and trusted brand relationships.

The Future is Now

There are numerous moving parts in the development of the social businesses and we are still early in it. However those businesses that are open to using the new customer engagement paradigm will distinguish themselves in the market for being closer to their customers and more agile and in meeting their needs. All this makes for happier customers -- and the creation of customer advocates.

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