How to Bridge the Social Media and CRM Difference

Internet marketers, social entrepreneurs and business owners have benefited much from the various features and tools that social media offers. However, there are always new objectives and tasks to accomplish to stay ahead of the competition and keep the target market interested. Social media marketers and entrepreneurs have to be aware of the basic principles of customer relations on online platforms to stay afloat.

The Social Media and CRM Gap

Social media marketers, because they are working on a "social" realm, have to focus on CRM or customer relationship management. This is especially critical as the demands and needs of customers tend to change very quickly. In a fast-moving environment as the Internet, one company's failure to respond swiftly to a client concern could be another company's gain. How do you make sure your social media strategies mesh well with customers' intermittent appetites?

1. Proliferation of smart phones and mobile devices

Today, majority of social media users employ smart phones and tablets to log on and get quick information from any location. This means that companies and marketers should also be constantly available for purchasing customers and those who have queries and concerns and require an immediate response. Marketers have to get more powerful devices that allow them to stay connected on the internet regardless of the time and location.

2. Location data

This refers to data that is only available to certain locations and areas. Successful marketers and sellers understand the advantage of being specific. Business owners should be more aware of local changes and adjust their marketing strategy according to the season and local incidents that trigger change.

3. Monitoring

The actual response, comments and views of the target market need to be monitored and evaluated if companies wish to boost their customer relationship management or CRM status. There are social media analytics and online tools that can provide very specific and reliable results. These tools will provide business owners with the extent or reach, impressions made, likes and actual comments from their target clients.Strategies should be adjusted according to these. One good example of a popular social media strategy is the use of hashtags, which is employed by majority of today's platforms. In the hashtag #Smurfs2 started by movie producer @SonyPictures and @SocialSmurf, we can see the tweet activity up toward the film's opening day and the related hashtags being used. As of this writing (based on figures from the past 3 months), #Smurfs2 has generated a total of 53,900 tweets and 127 million impressions. In the end, the most successful marketers and entrepreneurs will be those who can bridge the gap between social media and CRM by attending to these key aspects.