By Ramon Ray –

I know you get social media (or at least you’re trying). You try to post on a regular basis to Twitter. You try your best to create a great Facebook page. On the other hand, you know that you’ve got to be very focused on your customers. What you might not know is why it’s important to blend your customer service tools with social media intelligence.

Maybe you sell carpet. Before your sales teams calls upon your dental client, Dr. Marvin Drillman, wouldn’t it be great to know that he just Tweeted something about his wife’s upcoming birth day and you could suggest he re-carpet their den for her birthday. This is “social crm”.

As your business grows it’s critical that you not only invest the time and resources to build a database of your customers and know about their past sales trends and purchase preference, but that you and your team also know what your customers are saying in social media. 

If you are deaf to your customer, they’ll be deaf to you as well.

You’ll be marketing to them but the response won’t be as great as it could be or it will be simply a miserable failure. Building LONG term customer relationships is beyond a CPC campaign or TV commercial – it’s being in TUNE with each and other customer. The only way to do that is by leveraging social crm and executing on a content production strategic.

Part of this social crm is also analyzing your keywords, your analytics – gaining as much intelligence about your customer – aggregately and individually as you can.

Still don’t believe me:

· The competition today is stronger than it was 10 or 20 or 50 years ago
· Your customer has access to more information about the products you sell
· Your customers can easily speak to other customers about they’re good or bad experiences with you
· Customers want to feel special (social CRM is the new mint on the pillow)
· Face to face customer lunches are great, but MUST be complimented with social media listening – 24/7
· Issuing press releases and getting media attention is not enough. You must create your own content, that is found by customers and others and be your own media.

If you’re curious how social crm looks check out BatchBlue and Nimble – two simple and low cost tools where you can manage your customer contacts and also see what they’re saying on social media.

____________________________________

About the Author: Ramon Ray is a journalist, technology evangelist, speaker, editor of Smallbiztechnology.com and author of “Technology Solutions for Growing Businesses” (Amacom) and most recently “Technology Resources for Growing Businesses“. Ramon has written thousands of technology articles and news items for Smallbiztechnology.com and other media including: Open Forum, Inc. Magazine, New York Enterprise Report, Black Enterprise Magazine, CNet, Var Business, TechTarget, Entrepreneur.com, Small Business Resources and others. He has also written for technology vendors including Microsoft, FileMaker, and Everest. He is often quoted in the media, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Entrepreneur Magazine, Inc. Magazine, WCBS Radio, Crains New York, National Federal of Independent Business, Small Business Advocate Radio Show, Wells Fargo Small Business Roundup, Tech Talk with Craig Peterson and Smart Money.