Social CRM Panel at the Social Media Club SF/SV Chapter
He's a regular blogger on the Lithosphere and previously wrote in the Analytic Science blog. You can follow him on Twitter at mich8elwu.
Alright, one more digression this week before I return to the social network analysis (SNA) series. The reason for this post is because I've been invited to participate in a panel at the SF/Silicon Valley Chapter of the Social Media Club (SMC) this week. The topic of discussion is “Social CRM: Putting Customers First,” moderated by Jeremiah Owyang (Partner at Altimeter Group). I am very honored to be invited by Jeremiah himself. Besides me, the panelists include Wendy Lea (CEO of Get Satisfaction), Jamie Grenney (Senior Director of Social Media at SalesForce), and Stephen Mann (Director of Customer Advocacy at mint.com).
For those of you who missed the event, it was fun and quite a learning experience for me. I don’t want to repeat the panel discussion here. You can watch it on Justin.tv (part 1) in a two part video (It’s long, 2+ hours). But one great thing about having twitter is that the audience will take notes for you (for free). I remember when I was still an undergrad at UC Berkeley, we had to pay note takers (scribes, they were called) to take notes for us. But tweeters will tweet, and they have to summarize everything in 140 characters, so the tweets are concised digests of the important or memorable messages during the panel. And with the hashtag #smcsfsv you can easily retrieve all the tweets for this event.
I always like to look at the tweetscript (tweet transcript) of social media events that I participated in (the tweeting culture hasn’t really penetrated other professional events yet). Since I am a math guy, I like to see graphs and statistics, so I used what the hashtag?!. Too bad they only keep the data for 7 days. This is what I saw for May 20, 2010.
I can also get stats like, 39.6% of tweets come from the top 10 tweeters, 45.3% are retweets, 76.9% are mentions, etc. Pretty nifty tool wouldn’t you say? If by the time you read this blog, the twitterstream has cleared you can still get the tweetscript with TwapperKeeper. You don’t get the pretty graph and the insightful stats but at least you’ll see the data. If you don’t want to read through the tweetscript, here are some excerpts and summary. I actually read all 603 tweets, and tried hard to put them in the proper order and categories. Enjoy!
Social CRM: Definition and Why We Need It
Conversations are the center of business. Conversations must be linked to customer records. #smcsfsv
@mich8elwu says: The only way to scale with social is social" - crowdsourcing is key #smcsfsv so true!
Says @jowyang, customers don't care what tools you use - they just want their problem fixed. #smcsfsv
"When I think of social I think of "public", open, visible, transparent..." via @wendyslea #smcsfsv
"Social CRM is a bridge between the external world and enterprise.." "the bridge goes both ways..." via @mich8elwu #smcsfsv
@mich8elwu only one who responds and says #scrm is about both internal and external #smcsfsv good!
Lithium feels that Social CRM is about _both_ meeting the customer where they are and bringing them into your system. #smcsfsv
Xtel:
Do people mind companies sniffing around for what they're saying, asks @jowyang. @mich8elwu sez many don't & over time most won't #smcsfsv
"How many of you 2 willing to give your personal or social information to a company in exchange for better service, etc?" @jowyang #smcsfsv
Social CRM: Ethical Issues
Great question --> And what of haves vs havenots? Social butterflies get better service? Is that okay? #smcsfsv /via @TDefren
Of course social butterflies get better service. Nice people get nice treatment. #smcsfsv /via @TDefren
What makes a VIP customer? It used to be $$. Now it's followers? Interesting discussion at #smcsfsv
#smcsfsv panel believes that people with many followers should (or will end up getting) preferential treatment by others
Good question: Who owns our data? Or can we at least regulate and see our data? #smcsfsv
Salesforce says: Once a company collects your social data, it's theirs. Up to them to share it back to consumers or not. #smcsfsv
@setlinger if I produce the data and it's public it's a shared ownership. Sadly laws aren't made for this era. At least not yet. #smcsfsv
Tough question @jowyang just posed is, Do you reward shouting behavior on social networks w/rapid social support? #smcsfsv
@mintsupport getting sweaty answering question about whether supporting squeaky wheel reinforces bad behavior. #smcsfsv
Intersting point - let the wisdom of crowd help - @wendyslea #smcsfsv
The crowd will moderate complainers for you if you encourage them before you need their support. #SMCSFSV
Social CRM: Challenges
Question: #scrm is a process not a tool - what can potentially derail #scrm adoption across the enterprise? In culural terms etc #smcsfsv
Look at @zappos example - employees own social. It works when everyone is on the same page, right? #smcsfsv
The implementation of good #scrm requieres a bit of a cultural change. Focus on Relationships. #smcsfsv
"What prevents companies from turning social CRM into data mining with a nice name?" #smcsfsv
"Love is easier than trust-we are redefining the whole framework for trust in the cloud-this is a trust framework." -@wendyslea #smcsfsv
Says @mintsupport: deep integration with @getsatisfaction is helping them discover WHO their customers really are. #smcsfsv
I think #scrm should be used to make relationships become closer and not as a way to gather information so we can push ads #smcsfsv
Nice! @chrisheuer: "What's the biggest sin of original CRM that we have to avoid now?" No specific answers... #smcsfsv
@chrisheuer forces panel to keep it real. "I hear 360? view of customer and shudder." difference vs old CRM? Customer has control #smcsfsv
Old CRM was never about Relationships #SCRM needs to be. #smcsfsv
Old #CRM tracked what a customer thought they wanted. #SCRM should focus on what customers are saying they want. #smcsfsv
GeoSocial CRM and Online vs. Offline
What about synchronicity across channels? I get great svc from Comcast on Twitter, **bleep** svc via 800#. Wife begs me to tweet?! Hmm. #smcsfsv
"Location based social networks are nothing new - it's just one more channel to leverage." @mich8elwu #smcsfsv
"... challenge wit enterprise is pulling all the data together." via @jamiegrenneu #smcsfsv
"...we have talked abut the online component of SCRM, but what about using it offline?" via @jacobm #smcsfsv
Using any interaction online or offline to improve relationship and product = #socialcrm systems working properly. -@salesforce #smcsfsv
Any interaction w/ a customer that improves the insight & relationship should be logged for future engagement. #scrm #smcsfsv
Insights from Discussions (I forgot where they came from)
"A social network is a powerful way to disambiguate people. No 2 people have the same social network." - @mich8elwu from @lithium #smcsfsv
@jowyang #smcsfsv would love to get dr.wu's take on social vs regular algorithms
Ability of companies to do some useful with social intelligence still lags miles behind their ability to gather it. #smcsfsv
@ahesse: I think trend will move to #vrm, where the CUSTOMER dictates how to manage the relationship. Still early, but it's coming. #smcsfsv
Where's Doc Searls when you need him? Few but Kristie Wells and Jeremiah Owyang knew what VRM is. #smcsfsv
Salesforce @jamiegrenney: we dont see many companies using #VRM. Duh! It's not for companies, but their customers to use. #smcsfsv
Seems we are not quite ready to dive into #vrm. ::someday:: #smcsfsv /via @kristiewells
Social Media ROI
How many people have a social marketing strategy, but no idea how to measure it? Wacked. #smcsfsv
"This is the most beautiful time to be a market I have ever seen" - @WendySLea continues to drop wisdom. #smcsfsv
social extends your company values. If your team lives them, social enhances your brand. If not, you need policies! #smcsfsv
Ooh. Convo finally switches to the importance of great content. Well done @jamiegrenney in response to @steveology #SMCSFSV
Salesforce on Social Media ROI: 6000 views of a 3-min YouTube video is 18000 minutes of phone support avoided. Like it. #smcsfsv
@micha8lwu inferred intent is quantifiable and trackable. Allows brands to have a clear view of sentiment in the community. #smcsfsv
Agree w @themaria. #socialcrm won't occur w/out better internal collaboration. Thnx for addressing need to nurture that in culture. #smcsfsv
A lot of orgs need more processes - but ones that are co-created to work. Social intrnally as well - to resonate with customers #smcsfsv
The Final Wrap-Up
@jowyang other than @jacobm trying to steal the show, seeing good reviews for event! congrats.... #smcsfsv
@TinaHui #SCRM #SMCSFSV Future of SCRM? Overlaying CRM, working as a PaaS layer to a CRM SaaS layer, not going to be called SCRM either 
@carlainsf and I think best line of the eve comes from Dr. Wu at Lithium: "I'm in R&D." Honest, authentic response to marketing Q's.#smcsfsv
Okay, I promise that the next post will see me getting back to finishing the SNA series. In the mean time I hope you enjoy the tweet highlights. Feel free to discuss and debate any point of views above. Finally, I will end with this beautiful word cloud (generated by Wordle) that I've created with the tweetscript. You can see the topics that came up during the panel, the major mentions and tweeters at the SMC-SF/SV. Stay tuned and see you next time!
