Why Does Your Business Need A Social CRM?
Companies often need to ensure a robust relationship with their customers. For this, they need to keep track of customers from the moment they search for products till the sale is closed. CRM (Customer relationship management) helps them with this process. Social CRM develops a connection between businesses and customers in the media channel of their choice. Social CRM is becoming a trend among business organizations of every size. Brands prefer to use this platform instead of using social media alone.
What is Social CRM?
It connects social media channels with your CRM software, which provides every team member of the organization complete track of the interaction with the customers or potential clients. This interaction involves various conversations on different social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. It means that your social connection is your possible lead. When you contact someone for the first time on social media, it is not the best time to go for a hard sell. Instead, you have to track this lead, nurture the relationship with them, and then work towards the sale over the longer term.
Elevate your business with a Social CRM powered by data extraction. By harvesting relevant data from social media platforms, you can understand customer sentiments, preferences, and behaviors. This invaluable insight fuels personalized interactions, strengthens customer relationships, and drives business growth. Stay ahead in the digital age with a Social CRM empowered by data extraction.
Integration of social CRM lets you create a complete picture of a successful social media marketing strategy. Customer engagement on social channels can result in business outcomes like a purchase or subscription. Social CRM data provides you with highly targeted custom audiences for social ads.
How Can You Set Up a Social CRM Process?
Social CRM helps every department that engages with customers and leads. It provides them with a bigger picture of the people they interact with on social media. It includes sales, customer service, tech support, marketing, and product development.
Here’s how you can use social CRM for your business:
1. Enable a social listening program:
This social listening consists of tracking brand mentions and conversations about your:
- Company
- Products and services
- Crucial people within your company
- Target keywords across social media platforms, etc.
You can get the information/data mentioned above even when you are not tagged. The most significant benefit is promoting your brand/niche to build long-lasting online relationships. For example, finding a customer complaint that must be addressed on Twitter. Or when you get a potential lead for your business on LinkedIn. This data can help teams across the enterprise and give a starting point to adding social data to your CRM.
2. Consolidating your social interactions:
The social customer support teams could be engaging with the existing and potential customers on various social channels. Enabling and integrating that information in a single inbox can ensure that your CRM data is tied to people and not just the profiles. If you do not have an existing CRM system and are just getting started with the social media CRM, these first two steps can give you a good start.
3. Integrate social data into existing CRM:
It is convenient to integrate social data into CRM systems using platform integrations. Social CRM has a growing demand by companies of all sizes. Therefore, many CRM systems already provide easy integration with social tools.
Tips for Using Social Media CRM as Your Business Strategy:
1. Social CRM for understanding the value of a lead and a customer:
If you have a complete picture of how your social interactions are converting into sales, you can easily understand the value of the lead in the long term. It can help you plan the social media budget, especially the total amount you plan to spend for social ads.
2. Social data to provide more effective customer service:
Based on customer experience and a study, approximately 76% of customers expect consistent interactions from every department. And around 54% claim that sales, service, and marketing teams do not share such information. This situation can disappoint and discourage your customers.
Social CRM provides a clear picture of various social connections and relationships of customers with the company. Therefore, businesses should build their social media CRM strategy around available extra data and see how it improves interactions with people.
3. Social data to help leads qualify:
Social leads can assist you in filling your sales funnel. Moreover, incorporating various social interactions into lead and customer profiles enables the qualification of leads much faster and more accurately. Companies should make sure that they have the appropriate offers and campaigns to nurture leads they found from various social media platforms.
For instance, an opt-in newsletter, a drip campaign, and dedicated deals available only to social leads can help establish your credibility while building the relationship as you work for the sale.
4. CRM data helps create custom audiences for social ads:
CRM understands who your customers are. Social CRM lets you convert this data into highly targeted new audiences for social ads based on various factors such as location, age, social behavior, etc. This lookalike audience consists of people who have purchased your products and are more likely to have more conversions than a lookalike audience based on followers or fans.
Challenges You Need to Know With Social CRM:
There can be a few bumps on the road while setting up social CRM. Here are some potential challenges you should be aware of before applying this system:
- Change is not always easy: Changing the approach of your companies to CRM can be challenging for the sales and customer service teams. Employees will have to learn to use new tools and modify the processes from the traditional way. And organizations should assist them in understanding how they can get benefits from social media CRM. It can provide them the necessary motivation to accept the changes. The customer service department can get complete customer history, and the sales team can have better leads.
- It takes a little time to get results: Based on the size of your social following, you might not be able to get a ton of social data right after applying the system. It might feel at that moment that you are spinning your wheels, but you should stick with it to see the growth. Your social data getting fed into your social CRM will implore. This better data can help you to grow your social media following. You might not see results instantly, but, with time, you can see the difference.
- Getting overwhelmed by the data: You already have a massive social following and have many conversations about your brand on social media platforms. In this situation, you might get overwhelmed with the total amount of new potential data that you need to put in your CRM. You will have to decide what kind of interactions and data to add to the social CRM.
Social CRM can ensure the success of your marketing campaigns and assist you with managing customers. But you need to consider these points in mind before choosing the right social media CRM system for your company.
Author’s Bio:
Deepali Daiya is a communication expert who excels in understanding customer needs. Currently, she is associated with Sage Software Solutions, a leading distributor of high-quality ERP Software and CRM systems to small and mid-sized businesses in India.
