Social customer relationship management is part of the greater CRM family. With its unique position as the interface to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and more, social CRM is a multipurpose tool helping your business with marketing, sales, and service.

Social CRM is also a sophisticated address book, gathering profile data on all your social contacts, and keeping every single conversation ready at hand for the next time you connect, further boosting service and support.

Benefits of using social CRM

• Faster customer serviceUsing social CRM doesn’t just allow service reps to speak directly with people, it enables them to listen to what people are saying among each other. With social listening, you never miss the chance to reach out and respond to anyone who’s got a question or issue. Plus, customers prefer to communicate through their social media profiles, so it’s best to have a presence there.
• Build new relationshipsWhen any online profile engages with your content or uses keywords you’re monitoring with social CRM, that’s an opportunity to expand your network. Some great social CRM tools also help you find the right target audiences to reach out to. And since you can easily stay up-to-date with their info and activity, you can offer them more personalized experiences.
• Better understand customer needs & issuesThere’s a lot of data that builds up in the social sphere every moment. A social CRM helps navigate this info by giving you a broad analytical overview of all the latest hot topics coming from around the globe on every social channel. It also lets you zero in on demographics, or pick up on specific categories of content that might be super relevant to your potential customers.
• Build & improve brand reputationWhen people complain about crummy products or lousy service through a post or a tweet, chances are they want to be heard. What better way to signal to the greater community your brand’s willingness to listen than not shying away from criticism? Instead, show gratitude for the feedback. Social CRMs also let you publicly reward loyal customers, as well as re-share their praises, so that even more people get wind of your unsolicited awesomeness.
• Improved control over social presenceSocial media channels are proliferating. Beyond the basics of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, there are platforms for image sharing, video posting, texting and messaging, news curation, and content creation. A social CRM can translate to fewer man-hours because it unifies multiple accounts across every channel, helps you plan and post content at one time for many outlets, gives you a single inbox for all communication, and offers across-the-board analytics and reporting.
• Bring social media closer to marketing, sales & serviceOnce upon a time, a social media department was hardly significant enough to warrant more than an intern working in isolation. Those days are over. Social media insights are valuable for planning new products and services. Social channels are key avenues for marketing campaigns. Social contacts and connections are all potential leads on the way to successful conversions. Finally, social media is the preferred communication medium for customers seeking assistance.

Features of social CRM

• Customer profilesGet a complete picture of everyone you’re connected with across all your social media accounts, including age, location, demographics, engagement history, and links to their other social profiles. A good social CRM can scan your networks and auto-update anyone’s profile when they make changes. The more you know about your fans and followers, the better you’ll be able to offer them improved personalized content.
• Social listeningSocial CRMs have tools that allow you to monitor the online conversation with certain keywords that are relevant to learning about potential leads and mastering your industry. It’s also crucial that you never miss a mention of your brand or product no matter when or where it’s typed up. Social listening features mean your eyes and ears are ever stalwart in the digital content universe.
• Sentiment analysisWith sentiment analysis tools, you get a more nuanced picture of how people feel about what’s going on, whether in the world at large, or within the intimate spaces created by your brand experience.
• Social sellingWhile we’re all on social media for a variety of reasons—professional and personal—a company’s presence on social media should never lose sight of its ultimate goal of converting leads into customers and boosting ROI. A lot of social CRM platforms streamline customer interest directly to your sales staff or to an online shop, especially through Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook.
• Social media managementA single social CRM platform syncs numerous profiles from many social media platforms. A single post can find its way to every relevant channel at the ideal post time via simple scheduling operations. The unified inbox collects all engagements and messages, showing fuller social profiles for each conversation. Finally, it gives you thorough comparative analytics for all posts, ‘posters’, profiles, and platforms.