social customer

Social selling is a new technique that helps salespeople stay relevant with their prospects and build a networks of advocates that will keep your pipeline full. It allows you to stay connected with your prospects and build a relationship with them that goes beyond a vendor toward a trusted advisor. Here are the 4 main activities that make up social selling:[read more]

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Social media poses a quandary for many organizations: It’s a new channel for customer engagement, but acting like a newbie could be devastating to your reputation. Advice is rampant for what to do and not do on social media. Based on my personal experience at SAP as well as learning from early adopters, here are five mistakes you should avoid when you choose to engage with your customers and fans on social media:[read more]

Paul Greenberg

We connected with Paul Greenberg of ZDNet, one of the most respected minds in marketing, technology and CRM. As we enter 2012 and look toward major developments that will shape our industry, we provide Paul’s latest take on why he thinks we are moving beyond the social customer and entering the era of social engagement.[read more]

Social networking sites have become some of the most influential online sources for world events, politics, products, organizations, artists and more. And, of all the available social networking sites, Facebook is arguably the most ubiquitous social networking site in the world, influencing and facilitating millions of decisions about service providers and product purchases. And now both B2B and B2C businesses are finding creative ways to leverage the authority, trust and persuasiveness inherent in this important platform.[read more]

The Social Customer Leadership Forum on July 20 in Midtown Manhattan will share how top organizations innovate their overall customer experience through social strategies focusing on the customer perspective.[read more]

The Social Customer is not a figment of your imagination; she's here kicking social media butt and taking names. She wants to engage with you, the brand, but only when appropriate and convenient for her. Just because you are listening, does not mean that she wants to talk. Tools like Attensity Respond For Social Media (which we just launched today) help you understand what's relevant, what needs a follow-up and who should follow up. However, what you actually say to her is more of an art than a science. Understanding what her needs are, and where she is in her decision and consumption cycle, can help guide your conversation with her.[read more]

Social media is hot, and sometimes it can feel like an arms race across businesses of all sizes to start using social media. There are many caveats and best practices to listening and engaging correctly; although it's still a developing field and best practices are formed every day, there are certain spoken and unspoken rules and approaches. With that said, it's imperative that brands adopt a smart strategy and thoughtful execution of social media. Because social media should be integrated with all groups and silos inside the organization, having an internal social media leader more than makes sense. However, what happens when you don't have the right resources, or don't have enough resources to do something right now?[read more]

There has been a healthy discussion around the concept of the Social Customer that I've been observing and participating in, and this post was inspired by this particular discussion. Much like the debate around SocialCRM, a lot of the discussion comes down to definitions and terms. So I encourage everyone writing this post to step...[read more]

This blog was written Aliza Sherman, not Maria Ogneva. Aliza is the co-founder of Conversify, a 5-year-old social media marketing agency offering strategic planning, as well as social media monitoring, management and measurement. She is also a social media pioneer who founded Cybergrrl, Inc. and Webgrrls...[read more]

The social web has empowered and changed behavior and in general is having a broad impact on the way people find information, share information, make decisions and interact on both an individual level and with organizations. In previous posts I've looked at the new generation of hyper-connected or Gen C and looked at how the social...[read more]

Sure, the speed and always-on nature of the real-time Web makes it a daunting and challenging environment. A single tweet, YouTube video, or blog post can be the spark that sets off a firestorm of controversy. But while companies are rightly trying to get their heads around the concept that every customer is now a secret shopper and...[read more]

Zappos and 6pm.com make a $1.6 million mistake. Get lots of PR in return and social media cuddles. Zappos, the Twitter wunderkinds, made a big boo boo. Their pricing engine set a maximum price of $49.95. Six hours later, and 1.6 million dollars later, the company blogs about it: Hey everyone — As many of you may...[read more]

One of the cool things about working in Customer Service CRM is that the landscape is always changing-always something to learn and do better. Over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in the phenomenon of social media and the effect it is having on customer relationships and how companies interact with their end-...[read more]

Community management is not new. People have been managing communities since communities and user groups were first created. Someone has always had to make sure that the community or user group is humming along like a well-oiled machine. The fast spread of social media has changed the role of a community manager, and has created a...[read more]

I was originally going to write this post to cover the fact that Social CRM is also the customers' responsibility and not just the companies'.  Then I realized that at the end of the day most customers don't really care about what their responsibilities are, they want their needs and demands met and that's all there is to it...[read more]

Tired of receiving generic, automated spam on Facebook and Twitter?  It's time to start educating. I admit when I first started my company's social media marketing campaign I didn't really know what I was doing.  All I knew is that we needed to be on these new media platforms so I mainly just promoted our products and...[read more]

A friend in New York was responsible for a targeted advertising campaign on Facebook that achieved 100,000 fans in one day. Now that they've got them, they are tasked with making the conversation/experience authentic, relevant and enjoyable. What tactics would you employ? Here are some of my thoughts: Be transparent....[read more]

  Congratulations!  You have entered the world of social media and are actively listening, monitoring, reading, and dipping your toes into engaging in conversations. You are monitoring social media mentions and measuring sentiment of yourself and your competitors. Moreover,  you are tracking larger industry trends,...[read more]

One of the key skills required to be a good Online Community or Social Media Manager is mastering the art of listening to your community and effectively analysing feedback. Maria Ogneva's post “Tweet Me, Help Me, Don't Just Sit There” made me think about brands thinking they are listening but not really hearing feedback. It'...[read more]

As the Social Media landscape evolves, grows and more companies use it the more they will all clammer to gain some share of voice from their target market. There are companies that are utilizing the medium very well and are have tested some ingenious marketing techniques using social networking sites. But on the whole there is...[read more]