I found this golden nugget linked from a blog post which I can’t seem to find. It’s a White Paper/PDF titled “Work Faster, Work Better, Work Smarter Building agile, collaborative, and connected business environments.” I also heard someone talking about this a few years ago at a conference I attended. Talk about fate!

Here is an example of a large organization that opened up its firewall, built a community, co-created processes, innovated its products and reaped the rewards of increased productivity and efficiencies – and at the end of the day resulted in happy customers, happy partners and happy employees. I have had several conversations with IBM executives (See: IBM Case Study) and marketing folks over the last few months and I feel confident in saying that they are probably the closest it comes to a fully collaborative social business.

IBM, a global technology and consulting firm with thousands of clients in more than 170 countries realized that it could work smarter by soliciting meaningful advice from its global ecosystem of partners, suppliers and customers. Using their signature online collaboration tool that allows large groups of people to generate ideas and give feedback, IBM conducted the first InnovationJam back in 2006 (now called Collaboration Jam). The result was an explosion of new, innovative ideas; 46,000 at the time this document was published in 2009. And since then, the company has invested $70 million in the best of those ideas, and generated close to $300 million – again, this was two years ago so who knows what that number looks like now.

Point is .. the evolution, transformation (or however you want to refer to it) of social business is here; and has been for quite some time. And I would bet that there are very similar examples like this happening all over the globe in companies of all sizes. But realize that there will never be a perfect social business. There will always be groups of people and pockets in the organization that refuse to change or adapt.  And, inefficiencies will certainly arise when new leaders come into an organizations. And, silos will appear and disappear each time there is a new re-org (and those happen quarterly in some companies).  Social business transformation is a cycle of change just like everything else in life.

I write at length about this very topic in my book , Smart Business, Social Business: A Playbook for Social Media in Your Organization. You can order by clicking on the below social business book cover. 100% of all book royalties are being donated to Not For Sale; a global non profit organization trying to abolish human and sex trafficking. Thank you for your support.

The report was facilitated by a research firm based out of the UK called Useful Social Media. I have never heard of the firm before reading this report, but I am impressed with the data and findings. Ryan Holmes, CEO of Hootsuite wrote the foreword and the report itself was sponsored by the Hootsuite so that in itself lent credibility. You can download the report here by entering some basic information.

Here are some key findings of the report which I found interesting and noteworthy:

41% of the companies report that there is no staff dedicated to social media. Seriously?

Of those companies that have social media staff members, 46% are managers, 14% are executives, 20% hold the director title, 8% are VPs and 12% are CEOs.

Now this is interesting. Of the companies that participated in the study, 4% have a dedicated social media team and/or departments; 43% report into the marketing organization, 15% work within the corporate communications teams and 35% are randomly scattered across the organization. This is actually a good sign and illustrates that companies are empowering their employees to engage externally with the social customer. These are the inner workings of a social organization.

77% of those companies in the survey indicated that social media budgets will increase. This is a good sign, but my only questions is what the budgets will be used for i.e. internal business operations, community engagement, hiring, technology vendors, paid media within social media networks, etc.?

89% of those in the survey indicate that a social media strategy is becoming more important the company’s overall marketing strategy. I wonder though when it will be come more important to a company’s business strategy? Time will tell.

Only 40% of the respondents feel confident in measuring social media. This is a problem. Yes, social media is difficult but there are social media measurement philosophies and tactics that can be thought through.

Additionally, of that 40% that are measuring social media, 45% are assigning an ROI to their social marketing efforts. This certainly makes sense since many business leaders are demanding it.

This data is self explanatory.  Hiring social media agencies, consultants and technology vendors varies among organizations globally.

This is an interesting data point. The actual report titles this portion  “authentic corporate voices” indicating that if agencies are writing social media content on behalf of a brand that it’s not authentic. I actually disagree but that’s an entire blog post.

Many of the topics on corporate social media featured in the report are also covered in detail in my upcoming book, Smart Business, Social Business: A Playbook for Social Media in Your Organization scheduled to be released in July 2011. You can pre-order by clicking on the below book cover. Thank you.

The good news with all these acquisitions is that customers still have a choice as to which vendor to do business with. While many of the online monitoring vendors have similar feature sets, the difference (for the most part) is price. Now, with Meltwater Buzz and Radian6 having robust social CRM capabilities, the differentiators between the other vendors becomes more evident.

I talk in depth about social technology vendors in Chapter 2 my book, Smart Business, Social Business: A Playbook for Social Media in Your Organization scheduled to be released in July 2011.

Over the last 4 months, I have spent numerous hours researching these technologies and getting to know some really awesome people behind them. It’s been fun but the journey has just begun.  Please visit each of these vendors (below) to see how they might be able to add value to your business.

Collaboration and Community Vendors

Jive | IBM | Yammer | Tibbr | Microsoft SharePoint | Hearsay Social | Box.net | Cisco WebEx

Social Listening Vendors

Radian6 | Meltwater Buzz | Lithium

Social Relationship Management Vendors

Awareness Hub | Sprinklr | Syncapse Platform

Social CRM Vendors

Sugar CRM | Pivotal CRM | Nimble

Social Media Metrics & Analytics

Rowfeeder | Export.ly | Klout | Twitalyzer

Brand Advocate Technology Vendors

Zuberance | Rowfeeder

This is not a book about social media marketing. We are not going to explain how to increase friends, fans and followers. We’re not going to tell you that it’s time for your brand to “join the conversation” and we promise not to mention the word transparency either (well, actually we do say it a couple of times).

We believe that most brands get it; and we say that loosely.

Friends, fans and followers are important, yes. And brands increase their social equity by engaging in two-way dialogue with their constituency, yes. And transparency is key to these external engagements, yes.

But there is an underlying challenge that’s not being addressed as it should. Many years ago when I worked on the brand side,  Facebook and Twitter exploded and there was an expectation from the community for brands to create blogs and communities in order to engage with and listen to consumers.  And what we are finding today is that many brands are doing a pretty good job. Of course, every company makes mistakes here and there but for the most part, they are becoming more intelligent and adapting to this changing landscape. Most companies today are well on their way to becoming a social brand if they aren’t one already.

But this book is not about social brands. It’s about an organization’s natural evolution into a social business and the resistance that it encounters along the way. A social business deals with the internal transformation of an organization and addresses key factors such as organizational dynamics, culture, internal communications, internal collaboration, governance, training, technology, employee activation, global continuity and much more.

And what’s not visible to many is the anarchy, conflict, confusion, lack of communication and organizational silos that exist behind the firewall (Okay, anarchy is a little harsh but I think you get my drift). This makes the process of becoming a social brand much more difficult to navigate. So the quest to becoming a social brand and a social business is one of a simultaneous effort.

Both Aaron and I have a combined experience of over 20 years working for some well established brands. Aaron has a deep expertise in IT, customer support and community management and has worked for companies like Palm, Sun Microsystems and most recently at Cisco. My background has been in direct marketing, social media and community building for companies like Hewlett Packard, Yahoo! and Intel.  We believe our combined experience in the enterprise will be valuable to those who decide to come along for the journey.  Our book is not based on theory or what we “think” is happening in the enterprise. Rather, it encompasses our collective real life experience in working through many of these issues personally. This book is based on actual events (that was actually a working title – Based On Actual Events – until we decided to change it).

Time to name drop, well not really.

I am not the type of guy to name drop just to get someone’s attention. But I have to say thank you to few people whom I know personally that have helped me along the way. To each of you, if you read this, please know that I am deeply humbled that you have supported me in this adventure. You will never know the true depth of emotion and friendship that I have for you. I value our friendship and would support you in anything and everything you decide to do in the future.

• Brian Solis: thank you ma’ man for your encouragement and support for the last couple of years. I hold you in very high regard and thank you for agreeing to write the foreword for the book.  You are truly an expert in our field and I constantly learn from your books, blog posts, tweets and videos.
• Chris Brogan: Thank you for your feedback on my book proposal. I am sure you have hundreds of people asking for things. Thank you for doing this for me.
• Jeremiah Owyang: I haven’t shared with you that I am writing this book but you have always been a mentor to me and I am amazed at the work you do.
• Jacob Morgan: My boy Jacob, thank you for being a good friend to me; and thank you for agreeing to let me use your social CRM infographic in my book.
• Laura Fitton: Thank you for the introductions you made for me at Blogworld!
• Janet Aronica: Thank you also for your introductions at Blogworld.
• Paul Chaney: Thank you for your feedback on my book proposal. Thank you for introducing me to Wiley Publishing and Michelle from Pearson Publishing.  Thank you for featuring me in your book, the Digital Handshake. You have done a lot for me and I owe you.
• Amber Naslund & Jay Baer: thanks for looking over my proposal at Blogworld and introducing me to Wiley Publishing. I can’t wait to read your new book.
• Becky Carroll: You have always been a supporter of me. I appreciate our friendship and I am looking forward to your book too!
• Justin Levy: Thank you for all your introductions at Blogworld.  I really do appreciate it.
• Shel Israel: Thank you for introducing me to your literary agent.
• Mike Stelzner: Thank you Mike for all the introductions. Thank you for sending me a copy of your book proposal and thank you for the opportunity write for Social Media Examiner. Thank you for dinner in Vegas.
• Jim Tobin: Thank you Jim for talking with me and sharing your experience with your book.
• Chuck Hemman: thanks for hooking me up with some of your contacts who were also writing books. It helped a lot to talk to someone who is also going through the process.
• Andy Smith: Thanks for the great conversation about your book and your blog. I appreciate the time you took to talk with me.
• Michelle Newcomb: thank you for believing in our vision for the book.

As you can see, I am blessed to have people of such superb character supporting me. It’s a great feeling. The social business book will be released some time in the summer of 2011.

1. Most companies surveyed have adopted social media in the past 18 months.
2. The top platforms are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and blogs.
3. Brand building is currently the primary purpose for using social media.
4. Communications, advertising and marketing agencies are the leading adopters of social media.
5. Lack of management support and confidentiality concerns are atop the list of obstacles to social-media adoption.
6. Less than 15% of the businesses using social media are measuring return-on-investment.
7. While 60% of respondents say their companies are using social media, there is low confidence in their social-media strategies.

As I read through the report late last night, there are a few things that scare me a bit.

• Only 50% of those surveyed are using social media to identify and react to customer needs. This should be top of mind for every organization.
• Only 27.7% of organizations claim that social media is being championed by their highest leadership. This number should be higher, much higher.
• 31.8% reported that their organizations are not currently using social media due to lack of support from senior management.
• Only 28.5% of companies currently have a social media policy. What? Really?

Check out my book on Social Media for Business coming out in July 2011.

Based on my observations and experience working at HP, Yahoo and Intel; organizations that are thriving to be a social brand must first focus on organizational change, hence this evolution into a social business.

The challenge is that almost all brands today are already engaging with consumers on the social web. Facebook, Twitter, branded communities and other social networks are now dominated by brands and most of them are doing a pretty good job.  What’s not visible to most is the anarchy, conflict, confusion and lack of communication that exists behind the firewall.  So the quest to becoming a social brand and a social business is a silmutanoues effort.

I have been working on trying to categorize this evolution into 3 pillars – people, process and technology (it’s a work in progress).

Oh, and I am contemplating on writing a book about this. Not sure yet.

It’s very easy for me to say what an effective or ideal social organization should look like. It’s much more difficult to make it happen. It requires a firm commitment from senior level management across all business units (marketing, PR, Operations, Engineering, IT, Human Resources, Privacy) and a cultural transformation that empowers employees of all levels to do what is already a significant part of their DNA – to be social.

I have read several excellent definitions of social CRM but I am yet to be satisfied. I often try and put myself in my client’s shoes and evaluate whether a given definition (program or strategy) makes sense for the business. So far, a lot of what I have read is either fluff or so high level that it’s not actionable.  And from my experience working in the enterprise, a strategy that is not actionable is usually just someone’s really good idea that will never get implemented.

Here is what I have learned thus far.

I really like what Martin Walsh wrote about Social CRM – “Social CRM is a process to monitor, engage and manage conversations and relationships with existing and prospective customers and influencers across the Internet, social networks and digital channels” and found my good friend Jacob Morgan’s infographic on the Social CRM process to be extremely insightful.  And of course, Altimeter’s recent report – The 18 Use Cases of Social CRM, the New Rules of Relationship Management – gives insight on how organizations are leveraging traditional CRM tools and social technologies for marketing, sales, support and collaboration.

The challenge that I am finding in reading a lot of other material is that the term itself – social CRM – can be substituted with just about every other new buzzword on the social web; and it’s all saying the same thing over and over (i.e. it’s about listening to the customer).  While I agree wholeheartedly, there is so much more that has to happen on the backend for this to even work properly.

From a very high level point of view, it’s important to first highlight what my colleague David Armano wrote about this new evolution in business called social business design. I see this as a natural business progression as market conditions change and technology advances.  Businesses are getting smarter and acquiring new technologies, intelligence, talent and motivation to get more social. Social CRM is just one component of this transformation. I have been fortunate enough to witness firsthand how organizations are evolving from a business that merely engages in social behavior into a social business.   There is a huge difference.

In its most simplistic terms, and as explained by Jeremiah Owyang, a social CRM scenario would look a little something like this in the very near future (summarizing in my own words from a recent SMC panel he participated in):

Imagine that every employee in the company regardless of what department they work in will be equipped with a dashboard as a part of their computer monitor.   This dashboard will include all relevant customer data to include recent purchase history, demographic data, previous interactions, call support history, recent tweets and Facebook status updates.  This data will equip employees to provide more relevant and personal information with every customer interaction via web, over the phone and even in person.

Now it’s really easy to argue back and forth about how accurate this scenario may or may not be in the future (and for the record, I believe this to be very accurate); but from an organizational perspective, it takes a lot of internal collaboration, planning and technology integration for this to actually make this happen.

Jacob and I had a brief conversation about this a few weeks ago over the phone.  I asked him what the biggest challenge organizations face when it comes to social CRM.  His response to me can be summarized something like this:  no two companies are the same; and every company has different needs and challenges when it comes to social CRM (i.e. user experience, creation of advocacy programs, etc.) While I agree with this 100%, the problem with this reasoning is that it can be applied to just about any other business issue i.e. operations, marketing, customer support, supply chain, etc.  But if I am a brand marketer and ask, “how do I launch a successful social media program” and the answer I get it is, “it depends”, well there is definitely a disconnect.

As summarized in his recent post, Jacob basically said that those who are involved in social CRM need to do a better job conveying its definition to those who want to learn. He is absolutely right.  I would also add that there needs to be models defined or at least discussions of how social CRM theory can be put into practice from behind the firewall; not just from what a successful scenario might look in the future but how it can actually be achieved.

Now, I have a tendency of over simplifying everything; but I will go ahead and take a crack at defining what social CRM means to me.

Social CRM is one component that helps organizations evolve into a social business.  It is a strategic business initiative that considers technology, intelligence and process; so when organizations communicate with their customers they know what to say, how to say it and when to say it in order to provide a more relevant customer interaction.

Seems pretty straight forward to me but before a company can fully accomplish this, they will need to ensure that they are capable internally first.  I live by this motto and believe it to be 100 percent accurate and also relevant to social CRM; that is, before a company can successfully manage external conversations, they need to first master internal conversations.

As companies begin to start thinking about deploying social CRM, they will need to consider two factors; organizational readiness and the external social landscape.

ORGANIZATIONAL READINESS

Organizational readiness refers to the internal landscape (and culture) of an organization and addresses such issues as technology, process and people.

Technology is probably the most important issue because in large organizations much of the internal infrastructure is not integrated and many times scattered across multiple divisions, groups and even geographies. Organizations need to ensure that traditional CRM tools like SAP, Oracle and Salesforce are integrated with external social tools like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Google Profiles and listening software such as Biz 360 or Scoutlabs in order to gather and consolidate customer data.  Other technologies worth considering are Peoplesoft and Ariba; which could be used to integrate human resources and vendor relationships. There are several other software applications; too many to name here.

Process takes into consideration business rules, work flow processes, data & systems integration, escalation, global expansion and crisis management to ensure maximum efficiency within the organization. It also addresses governance. Even though many of the processes and integrations will be managed by the back end; having them will help maintain consistency for teams/employees that are on the front lines interacting with customers.

People address the cultural dynamics of an organization.  It involves employees (and teams) to serve as change agents and work together to collaborate in order to create policies & procedures, training and governance. They are responsible for shaping the social CRM initiatives ensuring proper alignment with other social programs both internally and externally. They will drive policies that outline the following:

1. Ownership and governance of Social CRM
2. Internal & external policies for gathering and integrating customer data
3. Policies for engaging with customers externally (probably a part of a larger social media policy)
4. Global and regional deployment and training
5. Budget and vendor management

EXTERNAL SOCIAL LANDSCAPE

The external social landscape address intelligence gathered from sources such as Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, social listening software, etc.  It also takes into consideration what networks people are using, how they are using them and the information being shared.

As the market changes and evolves, it’s important that social CRM leaders are thinking about forecasting consumer behavior as it relates to these tools; and identifying shifts in attitude and usage of social networks. Partnering with a research firm like Forrester would be ideal for organizations that don’t have market research resources internally.

The dynamics of the social web are changing rapidly.  Consolidations of social networks are on the horizon. New networks and capabilities are launching every day; and acquisitions are already among us.  All of these shifts will impact social CRM so it’s important for organizations to stay ahead of the curve and not fall behind.

So that’s my take on social CRM. I would appreciate any feedback.

Social CRM is a very interesting topic but since the “space” is still relatively undefined, it can be somewhat of a challenge to address.  The goal of this post is to keep things simple and high level so please keep that in mind and hopefully we can dive into more in depth in the future.

Let’s put aside terminology, jargon, and abbreviations for a moment and focus on some facts to help us understand exactly what’s going on:

• The fastest growing sector for internet use is communities (+5.4% in a year) (Nielsen “Global Faces on Networked Places”)
• Member communities reach more internet users (66.8%) than email (65.1%) (Nielsen “Global Faces on Networked Places”)
• By 2010 over 60% of Fortune 1000 companies will have some form of online community deployed for CRM purposes (Gartner Group – “Business Impact of Social Computing on CRM)
• “By 2010 more than half of companies that have established an online community will fail to manage it as an agent of change, ultimately eroding customer value.  Rushing into social computing initiatives without clearly defined benefits for both the company and the customer will be the biggest cause of failure.” (Gartner Group)
• Trust and transparency are as important to company reputation as the quality of products and services. (Edelman Trust Barometer 2010)

There are plenty of other statistics and pieces of information out there but the key point that needs to be made is that customers now control the business ecosystem.  People are talking about you and to you in these communities and these means of communication have now overtaken email.

Let’s also remember that CRM has always been about three things: marketing, sales, and service/support.  The new element we are dealing with now is conversations which, in addition to being its own element, also affects marketing, sales, and service/support (to keep things simple I’m using “conversations” to also justify ideation, feedback management, collaboration.)  At the end of the day, customers have evolved and businesses need to evolve with them.

What about social media?

Social media has and always will be about channels and tools such as Twitter and Facebook. In the near future we won’t even see “social media teams” at all.  They will all be a part of Social CRM teams or integrated into other business functions which in the case of Comcast is the Digital Care team.  So now that we have a good idea of what social media is and what the landscape looks like, what about Social CRM?

There are long-winded and confusing definitions that have been used to describe what Social CRM is.  Many of those definitions focus on technology and/or social media, which in my opinion are incorrect.  I’m not going to offer a definition of Social CRM because quite frankly I think it’s been defined to death.  What I will say that is that Social CRM is first and foremost a strategy that positions the social customer as the focal point of how an organization does business.  This strategy can be supported by technology but technology always comes second to strategy.

Social CRM does not in any way replace what CRM is or does but it does add the new conversation/relationship based element which previously did not exist.  If you want a more detailed explanation, read my Social CRM presentation on Slideshare.

What we are currently seeing in terms of companies jumping on the social media bandwagon is just the “tip of the iceberg.”  Eventually companies are going to move into a deeper level of integration which includes processes, frameworks, crisis management plants, change management, and Social CRM strategies (which will be specific for each company).  Companies will look at the communities they have built, the friends and networks they have amassed, the channels they engage in (along with the new data silos they created), and the conversations they are having; and then they will say, “how are we making the social customer the focal point of how we do business?”

That’s when Social CRM will become the answer.

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Jacob is the principal of Chess Media Group, a social business consultancy that is focused on creating Social CRM, Enterprise 2.0, and Social Media strategies for mid and enterprise size clients.  Jacob also authors a popular social business blog.  You can connect with Jacob on Twitter @JacobM.