Twitter has two of three key features of a CRM system
First, let’s break down why Twitter is going to be a Social CRM, let’s start by analyzing what entails Customer Relationship Management:
1) Customers: Yes, they got that. More than that, they have prospects, which to some marketers is far more valuable. As prospects start to talk about products, they’re indicating engagement, and could be further down the buying process. Both are valuable, however the challenge is mapping which Twitter ID is which customer –many don’t use their real names.
2) Relationships: Got that too. Now I realize that the intended definitions of CRM meant the relationships between customers and employees of a brand, but now you can see how people in Twitter are connecting to each other, and those that follow a brand, their indicating affinity towards them. The interesting thing is they don’t just offer affinity towards your brand, but also competitors, which helps in segmenting your market, and can help with poaching.
3) Management: Here lies the opportunity Twitter has no management tools to support this, as a result, their data is being whisked away in the API and being aggregated by two types of companies. The first company? Traditional CRM companies are importing the data into their own systems, in fact we know bits and pieces of this are happening for Facebook. Secondly, brand monitoring companies like Radian6, are importing twitter data into their listening platforms, and then offering simple workflow and task management.
CRM Incumbents Moving In
Today, SalesForce announces it’s integration with Twitter, or at least, their aggregation of their data in what’s called the ‘Twitter Firehose’ in order to suck in the discussions and allow it to be managed within the SalesForce system. As a result, brands will start to monitor –then manage– the discussions that happen online. I was briefed by Clara Shih (related book), the creator of FaceForce (now called Faceconnector) (Facebook + SalesForce integration) last week, and while I think they’ve taken one step forward –there’s more to be done in confirming IDs, influence, and intent to buy. Update: Here’s the Service Cloud site, which emphasizes customer service and support.
Twitter’s Opportunity –should they decide to take it
Although they have not directly said it, I think Twitter can go further than this, they could be their own CRM system, by perhaps offering their own analytics system to brands, that will help them to track and manage the conversations within the 140 sphere. This has tremendous opportunities for Twitter should they create their own brand management system that they can resell to the world’s companies to monitor, alert, track, prioritize, triage, assign, followup, and report on the interactions with brands. The myriad of authority based tools will need to be incorporated, as some users have a larger network and are therefore more influential than others. On the other hand, they just might leave the firehose open for the incumbent CRM companies to take advantage of –and miss this opportunity, hell, Scoble is already expecting brands to contact him when he has a major life event. Either way, with a recent funding amount of $35mm, they’ve enough run rate to first manage growth, then prepare for monetization.
There are a few layers when it comes to how Social CRM can evolve. On a related note, this is one of the key findings from our many interviews for the upcoming report: The Future of the Social Web.
CRM and Twitter Baby steps : creating a useful home profile
First things first, I knew the success would depend on the look of our homepage on Twitter. The icon, cover image, profile and tweets which constitute our customers first experience of us on this conversation channel. Specifically I knew when the newsletter was being despatched and that the bulk of our readership would be in the first 5 days after despatch. I paid careful attention to our Twitter homepage during that period. At Really Simple Systems. I tweet everyday providing links and images to CRM best practice articles and case-studies. I wanted to make sure any new visitors to our Twitter homepage had a good flavour of our content. So I scheduled five news articles to appear on each of the five days when the newsletter was being despatched. A new visitor to our Twitter homepage would see the kind of article we tweet, and the timing of these tweets. They will also see a link from Twitter to our sign-in page where they can join my mailing list and be added to the CRM.
Integrating Twitter into a CRM Marketing Campaigns
So with the Twitter homepage in good shape, I could then log into the Email Campaign marketing suite to follow in real time how many of our customers clicked through to our twitter page. The Really Simple Marketing Campaign software is fully integrated into the CRM. What this means is the newsletter report provided me with a list of the people who had clicked on the Twitter icon, and also any other details I had on them in the CRM system. This was the first step in integrating CRM and Twitter.
Campaign Analytics to deep dive into Twitter usage
If one of your customers clicks on your Twitter icon it normally follows they they are also present on Twitter. So armed with the details provide by the Campaign management reporting, I now went on to Twitter to look up these customers. Normally the company name was sufficient for me to track down their Twitter account. Sometimes I had to undertake a further search on Google to check I had the right people. This is the second step to integrating CRM and Twitter.
Building a Twitter following of real people who have an interest in your product or service
Now I was in the position of assessing their homepage and trying to discern whether they were potential customers for Really Simple Systems or whether they might wish to hear from us via Twitter. In some cases my customers had already followed me, so in that case, I followed back. If they are not following you, but you would like to strike up a relationship, a direct message, something like @customer. I wanted to link up with you on Twitter for the latest views and insights into CRM. Please follow me.
I spent about two hours working through all of the customers who had clicked through to my Twitter page, to discover and connect with these customers on Twitter. While this might seem labour intensive what it did do was:
- Hand build a quality fan base on Twitter;
- Connect with those people who are already interested in Really Simple System;
- Set up another communication channel with potential and existing clients.
Success in Twitter and CRM Marketing
There is so much information available about how to use Social Media, that I frequently use sight of the only real purpose in business, that is:
To make it easier for your customer to connect with your product or service.
By using integrated Email marketing and carefully reviewing the analytics, I was able to link to those customers via a channel of their choice.
If you have not tried Really Simple Systems Marketing Module, it is available to Free, Premium and Enterprise customers at a cost of £35 a month. This gives you a comprehensive integrated campaign marketing tool, and detailed reports and analytics of your email campaign. The approach for gaining information of your customers on Twitter can be used in other in specific Social Media channels be in You Tube, Twitter, LinkedIn or Google+.
I recommend this to you. If it worked for Really Simple Systems, it will work for you.
I knew my success would depend on the look of our homepage on Twitter. The icon, cover image, profile and tweets which constitute my customers first experience of me on this conversation channel.
5 Ways You Can Use Twitter To Improve Your Customer Relationships
As social media continues to grow in importance for businesses of all types, Twitter in particular is especially interesting. It is responsive, dynamic and casual while also being highly connective and adaptive. It allows for good customer relations, market research and many other benefits for sharing your brand and improving your business.
Although Twitter as a platform may be foreign to some folks, it is easy to use and an innovative way to build positive relationships with your customers. A well-run company Twitter account is a great way to connect with people, no matter what business you are in.
As Social Media Examiner reported, Twitter has inherent benefits that other sites like Facebook or LinkedIn do not offer. Setting up a Twitter page is a free, real-time marketing tool that is crucial for maintaining good customer relationships.
1. Brand Loyalty
By engaging in social media, and in particular Twitter, businesses have a way of connecting with regular people in more intimate and less intrusive ways. Unlike a television ad or company website, an informative tweet from your business’ Twitter profile is fun and engaging. Suddenly your message becomes shareable and exciting, and the barrier between what is entertainment and what is marketing is blurred.
The best Twitter accounts are proactive and responsive, tweeting in real-time in a way that better connects to regular people and customers. For example, when the lights went out in Super Bowl 48 back in 2013, Oreo utilized twitter to powerful ends.
This tweet was immensely popular and suddenly folks across the country weren’t just talking about football. They were talking about Oreos. Within an hour, the image was retweeted 12,000 times and viewed by millions of eyeballs.
Huge sums of money are spent each year in Super Bowl television ads, and yet with a single tweet Oreo was able to dominate the advertising headlines. In fact, Oreo put out it’s own Super Bowl ad that year, although odds are most folks can’t remember it at all.
A single tweet can go a long way toward building brand familiarity and loyalty, but to really maximize the power of Twitter, your business will need more than just one well-placed post.
2. Identity
Another reason Twitter is such a powerful tool to connect with customers is that it can be used to build a dynamic identity for your business and brand, according to Convince and Convert. Instead of a static “About Us” section on your company’s website, posting on Twitter is an enduring way to show what your business is all about.
Twitter is a means of sharing helpful information about your business and also promoting messages and building networks. Your customers can learn a lot about your business through who your company follows on social media and what types of people you engage with. A strong social network is a way to establish yourself within a certain community and also play a part as a thought leader and major contributor.
Overall, customers can learn a great deal about your business from your company’s Twitter page, and that can leave a lasting impression. Twitter and social media can be well-integrated with your company’s website to build a web portfolio and build a lasting brand.
3. Personality
Many consumers today want more from businesses. They want their favorite brands to be personable, socially conscious and relatable, and Twitter is a great tool for serving those ends.
The content and manner in which your company tweets says a lot about your business, and can be used to do more than provide information or promotional content. Like Oreo’s tweet, there is a way to show personalty on Twitter that other forums can’t match.
Convince and Convert reported that it can be beneficial for management and executives to tweet along with an official business account. This shows that the company doesn’t just have a savvy social media campaign, but instead is run by people with their own persona and charm.
It would be inappropriate for Apple to tweet about a specific sports team in such personable terms, but by using his own account, Tim Cook is making the business seem more relatable and friendly.
4. Engagement
As the Atlantic pointed out, a single tweet has limited returns in terms of engagement, although that isn’t to say that tweeting can’t drive web traffic to your company’s site. More accurately, Twitter is a crowded space, and for that reason reaching your audience takes more than just a single tweet.
A well-run Twitter campaign is a good way to drive traffic over time, but it is also a way for folks to interact and engage with your brand in a less formal setting. Twitter provides analytics tools to capture just how powerful a tweet was in terms of clicks and traffic conversion. At the same time, Twitter is important because it reaches people at different times and different ways than traditional marketing.
Some accounts interact with followers on Twitter, and a company profile can also be a point of contact for customer service. Either way, Twitter allows your business to interact with customers like no other advertising platform.
5. Market Research
Twitter has a number of tools that are perfect for studying market trends. Tools like polls and surveys are directly available, according to Ad Week, and Twitter is also set up to make engagement and market research as easy as possible.
Unlike sites like Facebook or LinkedIn, many Twitter users have very open accounts and share opinions and other helpful information. This can be a direct window into how your customers think and feel.
Twitter hashtags also make searching for information easy, and the trending topics feature allows anyone to see what is most important to people at any one time. This means that you can see in real-time what your customers want and what is important to them. With traditional market research it can be hard to get an honest read on how customers think and feel, but with Twitter it is possible to get information straight from the horse’s mouth.
Morpheus Land 