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Trending on 2012: Social Media Predictions

2011 has been a great year for social media, especially in terms of social media sharing—this generation’s second coming of the word of mouth. Last year, Facebook made 52.1% of web sharing while Twitter came in strong at 13.5% which also showed growth at 576.9%.  Google+ (introduced in the same year) got 373% of growth sharing while Tumblr rose at 1299.5%.

The influence of social media will definitely get stronger for 2012 as new blood and traditional sectors continue on adapting social media to its marketing, branding, and customer support. You can expect the rise of new breakthroughs like Klout. Klout created noise by launching an online application that can be likened to Google’s Analytics. Klout’s feature includes measuring social media influence. Measuring social media influence will determine your true reach, amplification, and the network you influence based on your social activities on the internet.

Social media will also widely affect search results. Earlier this January, Google has changed its search algorithm creating personalized search results based on your social presence on Google+. This has earned negative reactions from other search sites like Bing and website Gizmodo. Even Twitter expressed its disapproval on the move.

People also want control over their online social history. 2012 will have a great demand for tools that will quickly edit photos, wall updates, twitter status, etc. There will also be a demand for a single app that will be able to do all these edits. With that, you can also expect increased collaboration through social media within the work place. File sharing, instant messaging and remote collaboration are some of the elements that will push this need.

In 2011, television and social media started their collaboration. This 2012, watch for its steady interactive growth and visibility. Streaming and live tweeting events and updates will also be on the rise especially now that tablets and iPads are successfully putting their foot down on the market.

Social media games as a form of promotion will also be a boom. We can see these kinds of activities on twitter such winning a promo for being the (insert number) tweet. Discounts are still appreciated but nothing beats on winning an easy challenge.

Are you ready to experience these trends that will roll out on 2012? What are your expectations on 2012’s social media? What are the trends that you have adopted in your strategy?

Reference

From CRM to SCRM: Is SCRM for the Businesses of Today?

CRM has come a long way. From traditional linear approach to today’s social CRM (SCRM), it is apparent that the internet has shaped the process of customer relationship management from linear to circular. While traditional CRM tends to focus on three things: sales, marketing, and service and support, cloud computing enabled SaaS CRM which reduced costs and made the process conversational, organized and systematic. Truly, CRM has become an essential part of the business process as it is the bridge that connects business intelligence and its audience. Coming to full circle, Social CRM is the newest face of customer relationship management. In a study conducted by Gartner, the social CRM market will rise to $1 Billion in 2012 with a more open-armed adoption in the US than in UK. Gartner also stressed that social CRM will encompass approximately 8% of all CRM spending in 2012, up from roughly 4% in 2010 showing promising results in the future.

SCRM’s greatest allies are social channels like Facebook (with its 500 million users worldwide) and Twitter (which generates an average of 140 million tweets per day) which have empowered customers to put their mark in the CRM equation. As seen with the example below, we can now track a brand’s social activity online. Some of the questions to be aware of are: Are they empathetic enough? Are they answering to our needs right away?

An example is a tweet from a Starbucks customer who is expressing a bad service experience from a Starbucks branch. It’s not even a direct complaint or question but Starbucks does a quick damage control by appeasing the customer with a response that they will be “doing something about it”. This kind of online public interaction brought by SCRM creates a good rapport between the brand and the customer and not only that, whatever you post on the internet is also amplified to your network of fans or followers.

As a customer centric model, SCRM focuses on customer advocacy and experience—we want instant connection be it online or personal. Having a presence online also relates to a person’s drive to establish identity. When one puts up their profile online, they expect companies to see what they want and what they need in depth. For example SCRM paved way for the transition of defined channels to customer driven channels. Traditional CRM uses e-mails (defined channel) to spread the word to their audience and prospects. Even though e-mails are still highly effective and recommended, posting something on Facebook or Twitter gives a feeling of visibility and contribution to the community. This new culture of sharing is motivated by being information leaders which can strengthen a customer’s individual presence, in other words; SCRM breeds a culture of collaboration. Other examples of online social activities that help companies gather customer information are responding to customer queries, posting trivia, and holding contests. But you have to be aware of the things you’ll post online. All information you put out there will be and can be seen by everyone; creating a good impression and building your PR is also an added element of SCRM as sales and support are immediately converted to public relations they are published for everyone to see.

We’ve heard about all the good things that SCRM brings to the table but what makes it the thing of today? According to experts, social CRM remains a part of CRM. It’s not discrediting the very foundations of CRM rather SCRM serves as a business strategy extension of customer relationship management. The evolved SCRM accommodates the new elements that come in the service equation such as social networking, technology integration, and customer-centric demands. SCRM has gotten good responses from consumers all over the world; in America alone, 81% go online to verify purchase recommendations; 60% of consumers regularly interact with companies on social networking sites; 55% of them read user reviews; and 43% search ratings on the web. Right now, with Google+ being named as a threat against the top social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, we can see that there is a great demand for online social identity. If companies realize that what worked for the last 15 years will not work for today’s evolving business environment, then studying a new strategy that includes social CRM integration will be beneficial to them.

Twitter and CRM: Breaking the Myths

Many web based CRM (Customer Relationship Management) applications are turning to Twitter which is one of the most successful micro-blogging and social networking sites for customer service.

Websites like HootSuite, Followbase and CoTweet also surfaced to cater rich Twitter applications to organizations and companies such as Fox, MarthaStewartOnline, Facebook, McDonalds, Microsoft and Los Angeles Times to name a few. The emergence of Twitter enabled these companies to help their clients to post queries, get live updates and interact with the community.

Observing and participating in some successful social network sites today, social media has transformed customer service from being a monologue (that is answering survey sheets, writing up feedbacks and comments etc.) to becoming a dialogue. This is also one of the reasons why some social media experts say that Twitter is the new CRM. But here are some comparisons to why it is difficult to see social CRM as Twitter’s future.

According to Jeremy Owyang of WebStrategy, Twitter is going to be a social CRM because of it has two out of its three key features:

1.       Customers – Aside from customers, Twitter, following its initial appeal to companies, is that it is a nest for prospects. More or less, every young professional to C-Level executives have Twitter accounts. Prospects are important assets. They interact with your clients, creating engagement. The tricky part is that Twitter is huge social networking sites in which it allows users to not use their real names. Yes it could work for small companies as CRM but it will be limiting. Keeping track of their Twitter display names which can also be changed any time they want would be a challenge.

2.       Relationships – Twitter has a feature in which you can ‘follow’ a brand or a person and in the process creating a niche for conversation and relationship which harnesses feedbacks not only for your company but for your competitors as well.

However, Paul Greenberg, author of the best-selling CRM at the Speed of Light: Essential Customer Strategies for the 21st Century and the president of The 56 Group, LLC, said that exchange of opinions among peers can also be found in sites such as Feedback Planet or ePinions and having that opportunity doesn’t give Twitter the upper hand in CRM.

3.       Greenberg also criticizes its lack of management but Owyang says that there is opportunity to venture in management. Twitter doesn’t have the tools to support management that’s why their data is stored in the API. Then the data is handled by two companies. “The first company is a traditional CRM company that is importing data in their own systems and the second brand monitoring company such as Radian6 imports twitter data into their platforms and then offers simple workflow and task management.”

Greenberg is saying that there are truths about Twitter being an extension of CRM but it is not all that. It is a channel in which CRM can utilize in order to expand and connect with their clients. To quote Greenberg, that’s a channel (Twitter). It’s not a Social CRM strategy, system, or application.  It could provide premium services to make it a more responsive channel but it won’t be Social CRM unless it’s no longer Twitter.