But on the economic front, all seems to be ‘gloom and doom’ and ‘economic’ forecast for this holiday season seems to be dark, damp and cloudy with possibilities of storms – some severe. Question is can social media help marketers cheer up their holiday sales this season? or specifically, how can social media help boost sales on Thanksgiving weekend, which traditionally is the start of the Christmas shopping season.

Answer is yes, social media can be used very effectively for promoting sale of merchandise this holiday season. For example, how about announcing deals on company’s or store’s Facebook page rather than newspaper advertisements or promotional flyers? And to get the deal, customers will have to “Like” the deal. Better still, a customer can avail of the deal only if few of of his/her Facebook friends buy the product. More the number of Facebook friends who buy a product, higher the discount a customer get. Just imagine the excitement this will generate on Social Media and resultant free publicity.

And most online stores have option of Gift Shipping but what about having similar options on Facebook page of the company or the store, where a customer can select what items he/she want as Christmas Gift and this will be displayed on Customer’s Facebook profile letting friends and family know so that they can buy the desired gifts rather than something that is not going to be used or even worse, is going to be returned to store for refund/exchange – a big problem for retailers.

As I wrote in one of my previous post titled Social CRM: Thinking Outside the “Call Center” Box, we need fresh outside the box thinking to take advantage of unique characteristics of Social Media and Social Networks. Companies must leverage unique characteristics of Social Networks and re-engineer their business processes to derive full benefits from it.

If used properly Social Media can drive sales to such an extent that volume of sale on Social Media Saturday will be far greater than volume of sale on ‘traditional’ Black Friday with promotion only through flyers and advertisements.

What do you think? Do you agree that Social Media can help marketers cheer up their holiday sales this season? Please do share your thoughts. Would love to hear from you:

Social media have radically changed this equation between companies and their customers by empowering customers like never before. Customers can discuss about products on social media channels and companies have no control over what customers are saying about their brands.

But instead of engaging customers on social media, most companies still rely on marketing the old fashioned way – a vestige from the industrial age! Marketing processes being followed today by most companies are still very similar to what was done in the industrial age.

Companies need to realize that when it comes to creation and delivery of products and services, expectation of “Social” customers are vastly different from that of customers in industrial age. “Social” customers expect companies to “listen” to them and take appropriate action on their comments regarding products and services they purchase and pay for.

Social media have provided tools for customers to express their opinion and customers are using Twitter and Facebook for the purpose. We see comments about brands/products on Twitter and Facebook all the time. For example, delayed flight or bad experience at a restaurant. But instead of listening to customers’ feedback on Social Media channels and engaging them, companies still expect them to call or write to them if they need any help. In a nut shell, companies are still living in the industrial age when customers have moved on into the social age.

In fact, I wrote about this almost two years’ back in a blog post titled “How Customer Engagement will determine winning brands in Social Era” In this post, I explained that level of customer engagement will determine mind-share and market-share for a brand. ONLY those companies that effectively engage their customers and prospects will emerge as winners and those that are not good in customer engagement will lose market share.

Unlike in industrial age, not involving customers during product/service creation and delivery, and very limited after-sale support via phone is not going to work any more. Companies need to use social media channels and collaborate with their customers at every step of product or service creation and delivery.

To survive and grow in the age of social media, companies will have to re-engineer their product design, manufacturing, delivery and support processes, and not just their marketing processes, in order to involve customers at every stage of product/service creation and delivery.

Companies that succeed in involving customers at every step of product/service creation and delivery will thrive and grow. Rest will become history. Question is how many senior executive realize the challenge that is in front of them and are prepared to make this transition?

Netflix’s CRM fiasco underscores the importance of not taking your customers for granted, especially in this day and age of Social Media. Dissatisfied customers can not only take their business elsewhere, but can also leverage Social Media tools to express their disapproval in a way that can have big impact on other customers and towards the brand. Just see the impact of Social Media firestorm generated by this CRM fiasco on Netflix stock for example (see this link).

Social media has empowered customers like never before to connect and communicate with other like minded individuals ‘publicly’ and the last thing any marketer should be doing in this Social Media age is to take important decisions impacting customers unilaterally and without explaining the rationale or motives behind such decisions. In other words, customers expect to be involved in such decision making or atleast expect a rationale explanation before any changes are made.

So what can Netflix do to recover from self-made CRM crisis. Answer is to fight fire with fire, that is use Social Media channels to engage customers and build (should I say regain) trust and loyalty (for more, see definition of Social CRM here).

For example, how about using Youtube to explain why these changes were made in the first place. How about using Facebook and blog postings to respond to customers’ criticism about price hike and services changes already announced. Key is taking customers’ into confidence in such a way that they feel that they have been involved in taking important decisions concerning the service they receive and pay for. Netflix doesn’t have to respond to comments from each and every customer, but if they respond to few customers in a fair and transparent way, other customers would appreciate and would be much more supportive of Netflix’s position.

Netflix can use this CRM crisis and turn it into a Social CRM success regaining its past glory (and stock price) if they can engage their customers on Social Media to (re)build Trust and Loyalty.

I want to end this post by sharing with you this excellent Bloomberg video on Netflix and profile of Reed Hastings, co-founder and chief executive officer of Netflix Inc. In case if you don’t see embedded video below, please click on this link for the video.

This presents an excellent opportunity for business to tap into Cognitive Surplus, world’s spare brain power so to speak, and leverage it in a way that it is beneficial to all concerned (see this link for an excellent visualization of the size of Cognitive Surplus and refer to my earlier post titled Cognitive Surplus: Implications for Social CRM for more on the subject).

Quirky, a Social product development company is a very good example of not only collaborative work, but also of how influencers can be rewarded for their contribution (see the last column of any product’s page on Quirky’s online store for share of each influencer in total price of the product).

Watch the following videos to learn more about how Quirky taps into Cognitive Surplus of Influencers and rewards them for their contribution, a win-win strategy indeed.

Listen to to his inspiring TED@State talk about how cellphones, Twitter and Facebook can make history and his talk at TED@Cannes on how cognitive surplus will change the world. Thinkers and practitioner of Social CRM can learn many valuable lessons from these two TED Talks.

Enjoy the videos and share your thoughts and comments on how we can leverage Cognitive Surplus in business, especially marketing.

What should Google do to continue its dominance in the Social Age? Think outside the box, “Search” box that is! Google has done a great job focusing on its core competency of indexing content on the web and displaying most relevant search results without any “noise” or “clutter” on the screen. And this is what made Google so popular in the first place.

But this strategy of indexing web content and displaying most relevant search results will no longer work in Social Age as users rely more on Social Media channels and less on search engines to get relevant information. Google should shift its strategy from Search to Share, to continue its dominance in the Social Age as people are more likely to pay attention to content from those they trust rather than ones suggested by search engines. 

Facebook recently introduced some great changes to its service in order to leverage the power of Open Graph and “create a smarter, personalized web that gets better with every action taken” (for more, see Mark Zuckerberg‘s blog post here). Google should up the ante on Facebook by introducing “Social Plugins” that will help collect, index and display content based on Social links. And this transformation from Search to Share involves thinking outside the Search box.

I want to end this post by sharing with you this great CNBC Video titled Inside the Mind of Google that explains very well Google’s success story. Enjoy the video!

Social Media according to Chris Brogan:

• Lot of light as compared to heat
• Puts human face back on Business
• Big companies have a chance to feel small and human again
• Individuals have an opportunity to compete with bigger organizations like never before

• 65.6% In House
• 15.6% Interactive Agency
• 9.4% PR Firm
• 9.4% Social Media Agency
• 0% Creative/Ad Agency

Why majority of respondents preferred In House Agency rather than entrusting the work to outside firms?

Answer lies in the fact that Social Media is still a very new subject and unexplored medium – constantly evolving. More importantly, Social Media/Interactive/PR/Creative/Ad agencies have not done a good job of defining their offerings and articulating them well to clients. And in absence of any well defined service offerings from agencies, clients prefer to do Social Media in-house.

What Can agencies do to remedy the situation?

• Come out with well defined service offerings
• Articulate their service offerings well to clients
• Offer a result oriented approach to induce clients to try out Social Media
• Hire best available talent who understand Social Media well and how to leverage it for Brand Promotion

Agencies will have to take a lead on this and guide their clients. Early birds will get the best returns! What do you think?

• John Chambers, Chairman and CEO, Cisco: “Social Networking is transforming companies. It is the future of Business Productivity, Health Care, Education and Entertainment.”
• Indra Nooyi, CEO, Pepsico: “Global company with global brands and reputation can use it as a force for good.”
• Jeffrey Joerres, President and CEO, Manpower: “When it comes to Social Networking, it is a major trend towards what will be a very standard everyday stuff.”

This very clearly highlights the fact that Social Media and Social Networking are not a fad, but for real, are here to stay and will become mainstream in near future. Social Business is not just another way of doing business, it is THE way business will be conducted.

I strongly recommend that all senior executives (and especially the CMOs) start taking Social Media initiatives seriously, and lead from the front when it comes to use of Social Media, as survival and growth of their business rests on how effectively they leverage emerging tech tools.

Social Networking has far reaching implications for the marketing department and I recommend that CMOs setup a Social Media Task force that will advise them on how to quickly adapt and integrate their marketing operations into emerging Social Networking tools and applications. Sooner marketing department(s) adopt and start using Social Networking for engaging their customers better for their brand(s), else performance of their business will suffer.

Social CRM is the business strategy of engaging customers through Social Media with goal of building trust and brand loyalty. Loyalty is defined as attitude towards a brand that inclines a customer to repurchase it and/or recommend it to others.

Social CRM and Social Media are more about building trust and managing loyalty with customers than about managing relationships or transactions, which are focus areas of “traditional” CRM.

Hope this answers the question. If not, please feel free to leave a comment:

* Only 2 CEOs have twitter account
* Mere 13 have LinkedIn profile
* 81% do not have a Facebook page
* Only 2 Fortune 100 CEOs have more than 10 friends on Facebook
* Not one Fortune 100 CEO has a blog

Shouldn’t CEOs leverage growing reach and effectiveness of Social Media channels to reach out to their Customers, Employees and other stake holders?

In my opinion, they should. Of course, they need to be careful in what they write on their Facebook page or on Twitter. But they SHOULD use social media channels with necessary inputs from their PR, Media Relations and Legal departments. Social Media is all about bringing the “human touch” and CEOs being public face of corporations can use Twitter very effectively for this. For example, CEOs can tweet about what their company has done to help those affected by recent earthquake in Haiti. This can help generate a lot of goodwill for their corporate brand.

Watch this excellent CNN video interview with Pete Cashmore of Mashable.com and Sarah Milstein

Zappos CEO is quoted as saying “if you don’t trust your employees to tweet freely, it’s an employee or leadership issue, not an employee Twitter policy issue”.

So true! Hope more CEOs and senior executives start actively using Social Media channels like Facebook and Twitter and allow their employees to do the same in a constructive way that will benefit everyone!

What do you think? Should CEOs and other senior executives use Twitter and Facebook? And should they allow employees in their company to use Social Media freely?

This is a great talk by Erik on why Social Media is one of the greatest shift since industrial revolution and what successful people and companies are doing in this space. Watch the video:

This study confirms the phenomenal growth in Social Media usage, not only in terms of number of users, but average amount of time spent by each user on social networking sites. There is a unique opportunity for marketers to leverage emerging media for Social CRM, which can be defined as business strategy of engaging customers through Social Media for building trust and brand loyalty.

But in spite of this clear opportunity, marketers have not allocated time or resources for engaging customers over Social Media channels. According to a survey of 124 chief marketing officers by The CMO Club and Hill & Knowlton, more than four out of five (84 percent) chief marketing officers (CMOs) allocate less than ten percent of their budgets to experimenting through social media and non-traditional communications channels, with more than half (55 percent) allocating just five percent or less. To the question “Does your brand have a web 2.0 communications policy?” almost half said either they don’t have or are currently developing one. Only 14% CMOs said that they were “proactive” about creating external brand advocates and leveraging them (detailed findings of the survey here).

In another study by Weber Shandwick for evaluating how effectively Fortune 100 companies used Twitter to its full potential as an engagement platform, it was found that “for the majority of Fortune 100 companies, Twitter remains a missed opportunity. Many of their Twitter accounts did not appear to listen to or engage with their readers, instead offering a one-way broadcast of press releases, company blog posts and event information. This falls short of the opportunity that Twitter offers as a valuable communications channel and strategic social network.”

Results of a study by Burson-Marsteller on Fortune 100′s use of key Social Media Tools and another study on use of Social Media tools by CEOs of Fortune 100 companies are equally disappointing.

Findings of studies referred above clearly indicate that even large companies don’t get it when it comes to Social Media. Marketers are not having their eyes and ears on Social Media channels that are going to drive their business going forward.

It is very important that all senior executives (and especially the CMOs) start taking Social Media initiatives seriously. They should lead from the front when it comes to use of Social Media, as survival and growth of their business rests on how effectively they leverage emerging tech tools. As a first step in this direction, I strongly recommend that CMOs should:

• Have a Twitter account and start using it for communicating with customers and general public
• Monitor discussion regarding their company or brands on Social Media channels and if there are any legitimate issues, take it up with respective execs and make sure that they are resolved
• Should use feedback gained from Social Media channels and ask right questions during review meetings. This will send out clear message down the chain that senior execs are listening to customers on Social Media and line managers or customer support staff will be more responsive to handling customer issues via Social channels.
• Set up a Social Media Task force that will advise them on how to quickly adapt and integrate their marketing operations into emerging Social web applications

These are some of the Must Do items that every CMO should tackle right away. Sooner they adopt and start using Social Media for engaging their customers better for them, else performance of their business will suffer.

Dear CMOs, the choice is yours!

Panelist include:

• Jamie Daves, Venture Partner at City Light Capital
• Tom Arrix, Vice President of Sales at Facebook
• Peter Land, Senior Vice President of PepsiCo
• Joe Marchese, Co-founder and President of SocialVibe
• Seth Sternberg, CEO and co-founder of Meebo

Some key points of discussion are:

1. Pepsico marketing in Social Media
2. New Era in Media Advertising
3. Advertisers utilizing Facebook user experience
4. Monetization models and revenue streams
5. Monetization from communities, not brands
6. Evolution of Social game experience
7. User experience: International Vs. Domestic

• Scale of Asia: China, India, Japan, Indonesia, Korea – to name just a few countries.
• Diversity: Culture and Languages
• Usage of Internet: Access to Social Networking sites via Mobile devices, not a PC
• Monetization models

Watch this excellent video interview with Thomas Crampton, Asia-Pacific Director, Digital Influence at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, followed by a Slideshare presentation by him.

Very relevant given the fact that many organizations are grappling with this issue currently. I think best way for organizations to deal with this issue is to educate employees about Do’s and Don’ts, have a “reasonable” Social Media usage guidelines and above all, have Trust and Confidence in employees to do the right thing.

(Click Play for slide show to play with presentation audio)

Panel 1: On Social and Technological Innovation being brought about by Social Media:

Panel 2: Implications of Social Media to business:

Marketers were most optimistic about social media, online video, SEO, mobile, paid placement in social media, email and paid search, in descending order. Near the bottom were outdoor, telemarketing, radio and newspapers. As per Forrester’s Interactive Marketing forecast, Interactive marketing will approach $55 billion in marketing spend in 2014 benefiting from search, social media and mobile marketing.

It is important to note that in the past two years, time spent by consumers online has grown from 29% to 34%, but advertisers spend only 12% of their budget on Internet marketing. Forrester predicts that by 2014, spend will increase to 21% of budget. Forrester further predicts that both social and mobile will have the biggest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) — 34% and 27%, respectively through 2014.

So, there you have it! Consumers are spending more time online, interacting with their friends and contacts through Social Networks. TV and Print Media have seen their Viewership/Readership fall significantly. This is the right time to allocate (or should I say “shift”) resources for investment from “traditional” media to “new” media and engage customers through Social Media for building trust and loyalty (see my earlier post on What is Social CRM and why it is important). It is time for CMOs and Marketing Executives to wake up to Social Media challenge and lead from the front.

What do you think? Should CMOs & CIOs wait any longer before deciding to allocate $$$ for Social CRM Program?

Although this video is more than a year old, it is very much relevant in today’s context and worth watching again.

Given statistically significant correlation between social media engagement and financial performance metrics – revenue and profit, one would expect CMOs to be busy making elaborate plans about engaging customers through Social Media, Right? WRONG!

According to a survey of 124 chief marketing officers by The CMO Club and Hill & Knowlton, more than four out of five (84 percent) chief marketing officers (CMOs) allocate less than ten percent of their budgets to experimenting through social media and non-traditional communications channels, with more than half (55 percent) allocating just five percent or less.

To the question “Does your brand have a web 2.0 communications policy?” almost half said either they don’t have or are currently developing one. Only 14% CMOs said that they were “proactive” about creating external brand advocates and leveraging them (detailed findings of the survey here).

This lack of involvement on the part of CMOs contradicts with the growth of Social Media, not only in terms of users but time spent on it as well (see excellent post by Brian Solis on growth stats).

In another study by Weber Shandwick for evaluating how effectively Fortune 100 companies used Twitter to its full potential as an engagement platform, it was found that “for the majority of Fortune 100 companies, Twitter remains a missed opportunity. Many of their Twitter accounts did not appear to listen to or engage with their readers, instead offering a one-way broadcast of press releases, company blog posts and event information. This falls short of the opportunity that Twitter offers as a valuable communications channel and strategic social network.”

As per findings of two studies quoted above, we can see a major “disconnect” given the phenomenal growth in Social Media usage on one hand and lack of involvement of CMOs on the other. CMOs need to wake up to Social Media challenge NOW and lead from front, else they risk falling far behind other brands, not only in their industry, but across customers’ general online experience.

What do you think? What should CMOs do to engage their customers through Social Media for building Trust and Loyalty?

Findings of another Study on use of Social Media tools by CEOs of Fortune 100 companies
are even more shocking. It was found that among Fortune’s top 100 CEOs:

• Only 2 CEOs have twitter account
• Mere 13 have LinkedIn profile
• 81% do not have a Facebook page
• Only 2 Fortune 100 CEOs have more than 10 friends on Facebook
• Not one Fortune 100 CEO has a blog

This shows CEOs are disinterested and are not having their eyes and ears on Social Media channels that are going to drive their business going forward. It is very important that all senior executives of business start taking Social Media initiatives seriously, especially the CEOs and CMOs. They should lead from the front when it comes to use of Social Media as survival and growth of their business rests on how effectively they leverage emerging tech tools. To start with, CEOs and CMOs should:

• Have a Twitter account and start using it for communicating with customers and general public
• Have a Facebook page and respond to discussion on their page
• Monitor discussion regarding their company or brands on Social Media channels and if there are any legitimate issues, take it up with respective execs and make sure that they are resolved
• Should use feedback gained from Social Media channels and ask right questions during review meetings. This will send out clear message down the chain that senior execs are listening to customers on Social Media and line managers or customer support staff will be more responsive to handling customer issues via Social channels.
• Set up a Social Media Task force that will advise them on how to quickly adapt and integrate their business into emerging Social web applications

These are some of the Must Do items that every CEO and CMO of any business should tackle right away. Sooner they adopt and start using Social Media for engaging their customers and key stake-holders better for them else performance of their business will suffer. They need to make sure that their business engages customers through Social Media for building trust and brand loyalty.

What is your opinion? What should CEOs and CMOs do to effectively engages Customers on Social Media for building Trust and Loyalty? Love to hear from you …

Social CRM and Social Media are more about building trust and managing loyalty with customers. This fact is well illustrated in Lion brand Social Media conversion case study. On slide #7 note that Social Media users are 83% more likely to be very brand loyal than people who don’t use Social Media. This indicates that if marketers engage customers using social media, they can build a loyal relationship based on trust – biggest asset for any brand.

Engagementdb has published a study that shows strong evidence that Social Media Engagement correlates to Financial Performance (see the report on The world’s most valuable brands. Who’s most engaged? http://www.engagementdb.com/downloads/ENGAGEMENTdb_Report_2009.pdf )

According to this study “”Engagement via social media IS important — and we CAN quantify it. There is statistically significant correlation between social media engagement and the two most meaningful financial performance metrics – revenue and profit”. This study further states that:

• It pays to engage meaningfully in social media. Emphasize quality, not just quantity.

• Engagement is more than just setting up a blog or Facebook profile and letting viewers post comments,  it’s keeping your content fresh and replying to comments; it’s building your friends network and updating your profile status.

• To scale engagement, make social media part of everyone’s job. You must do something, else risk falling far behind other brands, not only in your industry, but across your customers’ general online experience.

• Engagement can’t be skin-deep, nor is it a campaign that can be turned on and off. True engagement means full engagement in the channels where you choose to invest.

This clearly illustrates the importance of engaging customers via Social Media for building trust and loyalty towards the brand – the essence of Social CRM (http://hkotadia.wordpress.com/2009/10/17/what-is-social-crm/

What do you think? Are you convinced that brands have to engage customers via Social Media or SM is just a passing fad – will go away in the next couple of years. Pls share your comments:

Great Social Media Strategy Framework – But is it more Art than Chart? Does it not violate KISS principle – Keep it Simple Stupid. What do you think?

Social CRM and Social Media are more about building trust and managing loyalty with customers than about managing relationships or transactions, which are focus areas of “traditional” CRM.