Social CRM is a new field & its jargons are not yet neatly laid out. However it very imperative that we agree to a few dirty definitions, especially to remove the chance of getting confused with the terms.
Social Media, Social Networks, Online Communities, Social CRM, Social Media Monitoring, Sentiment Analyzer are all different terms. Just want to ensure we understand each other properly when we use the various new terms & jargons. There is no academic rigor behind these, nor do I think these are actually definitions, may be descriptions.
- Tools like Lithium, Jive, Drupal, etc. help build Online communities of consumers for a particular organization, brand or even product/service. They differ from Social Networks or Social Networking Sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, which are public sites allowing people to connect with each other.
- Social Media comprises of both the medium & the content that are generated & shared by the users. So they are also alternatively called as User Generated Content or Consumer Generated Content. There are different types of content on different kind of sites: text (blogs), videos (YouTube), pictures (Flickr), audio (podcasts), bookmarks (digg), presentations (slideshare), etc.
- Social Media Monitoring is the new breed of tools that allow organizations to listen in to the noise generated in the Social Web for any mention about their brand, offerings, industry, competitors, etc. that could provide them early signals/warnings.
- Sentiment Analysis is used in Social Media Monitoring tools to figure out the sentiment behind the content. It is an upstart technology & IMHO, not very reliable despite many claims to the contrary by various vendors. The false positives are too many & human resource deployment is very high. Ensuring continuity in the teams is also coming out a crucial issue.
Social Media Monitoring and Sentiment Analysis in my mind are passive marketing activities. Don't forget that in Paul's definition it is the company's response to the customers' conversation. Maybe you should add a category of describing what active actions Marketing undertakes to influence the conversation? (and not just twitterads but rather activities that improve the customer experience...)
ReplyDeleteYes Mark. I agree that Social CRM is all about the organizations response. I did not want to beat a dead horse by over referencing Paul's post on the description of Social CRM. ;)
ReplyDeleteWhat made me write this post was the fact that most people state social CRM where they actually mean social media! Or sentiment analysis when they mean social media monitoring!
This post is not at all for our #scrm accidental community, but for the general populace who haven't yet figured out social business is not about giving back to the society! :D
Hey Prem. Great post and timely on the evolution of Social CRM. Like to add that it's a lot more than tools when building a customer network. Companies needs community management strategies to grow and engage customers, prospects, and partners. Drupal and Lithium are not in same category. Drupal is a tool that requires you to build out the technology, then looks elsewhere for management strategies. Lithium is solution which includes software, delivery & brand integration, managed services, and best practices.
ReplyDeleteDan, thank you for joining the #scrm conversation both on Twitter as well as here. :)
ReplyDeleteDan, I am very painfully well aware that "social" is hell a lot more than mere technologies. And I agree I was over simplifying when I put Lithium & Drupal together. But that was more for the range we are considering rather than trying to be too pedantic about the definitions. :)
Please feel free to read the other posts here & elsewhere on the web I have published regarding social CRM.