{"id":198,"date":"2009-10-28T08:27:16","date_gmt":"2009-10-28T15:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.avignyata.com\/blog-socialmediamarketing\/?p=198"},"modified":"2009-11-07T08:17:58","modified_gmt":"2009-11-07T15:17:58","slug":"social-networking-meets-crm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.avignyata.com\/blog\/social-networking-meets-crm\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Networking Meets CRM"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blogs, forums <\/a>and wikis are all tools that can help companies reach out to customers and boost business.<\/p>\n

Social-networking tools aren\u2019t just for Facebook<\/a> fanatics anymore. These days, consumers are demanding a higher degree of interactivity from customer-service departments. As a result, companies are being challenged to add online capabilities to their CRM<\/a> systems.<\/p>\n

Take, for example, today\u2019s social-networking technologies<\/a>. By building a product-centric social network that encourages visitors to swap information and connect with other like-minded individuals, a company can gather crucial customer contact information and build a virtual community.<\/p>\n

Then there is the blogging phenomenon. For marketing, blogs work great to build brand equity<\/a> and familiarity. Whether introduced as part of an existing product site or as a dedicated minisite for a particular product, a blog can serve as a casual and conversational approach to addressing consumer concerns and building product loyalty.<\/p>\n

Companies can also use wikis to enhance customer relations. A wiki is a Web site that allows users to freely create and edit content using any Web browser \u2014 without requiring HTML or other technical skills. \u201cWikis can be a cheap way to maintain a product Web site for both marketing and for service,\u201d said Hickernell. Not to mention the value-add capabilities of wiki technology. For example, a food manufacturer can easily create a wiki-based Web site that allows customers to contribute to a recipe database.<\/p>\n

DISCUSS AMONGST YOURSELVES
\nDiscussion forums\u201care good for building customer communities around products and brands. More than simply a destination for consumers to swap product information and tips, a discussion forum can be used to generate buzz around a product or service without a multimillion-dollar advertising budget. The right discussion forum can even increase sales revenue. Consumers are willing to pay 20 percent more for a service that received an \u201cexcellent\u201d rating from fellow consumers than they are for the same service that received a \u201cgood\u201d rating. And respondents said that reviews generated by consumers had a greater influence than those written by professionals.<\/p>\n

But while online tools can engender a sense of community and brand loyalty among consumers, there is also a downside. For starters, you do need to have strong moderation when you offer user-support forums to make sure bad discussion threads are removed immediately. After all, foul language, racist comments and unflattering product reviews can \u201cbe very detrimental\u201d to a company\u2019s customer relations, sales <\/a>and image.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blogs, forums and wikis are all tools that can help companies reach out to customers and boost business. Social-networking tools aren\u2019t just for Facebook fanatics anymore. These days, consumers are demanding a higher degree of interactivity from customer-service departments. As a result, companies are being challenged to add online capabilities to their CRM systems. Take, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,41,5,3],"tags":[50,224],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.avignyata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.avignyata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.avignyata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.avignyata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.avignyata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.avignyata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256,"href":"https:\/\/www.avignyata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198\/revisions\/256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.avignyata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.avignyata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.avignyata.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}