Using Social Media in Marketing

 

    I read the Gartner article "How To Establish a Social CRM Strategy" by Michael Maoz and the case study: "Virtusa's Social Media Plan" by Carol Rozwell." Both of these readings raise some unique and rather obvious points regarding how companies should integrate social media technology into their marketing plans.

    Maoz article touches on the importance of adding a social CRM strategy into the mix to help companies establish customer service at its best. Setting up such a system will help companies establish trust with their customers which is pinnacle if a company wishes to maximize profit and consumer satisfaction. Social CRM's show how the world is changing right before our eyes. Technology is becoming a more necessary part of business practices and companies now need to be at the forefront of technology if they wish to be a successful corporation. All of the companies that are at the forefront of technology are the highest grossing companies. Let's use Google and Apple as examples to name a couple. The success of these technology companies is showcased in their stock prices. The insanely high stock prices can be credited to the commitment to staying at the forefront of technology. Google is always coming up with some new way for customers to interact with one another whether it's Gmail or android phones and Apple is always coming out with new hardware for people to interact on like the IPAD. Social CRM technologies are "hybrid solutions that encompass social-software applications." Companies must engage in some of these applications if they want to gain customer trust and to foster an environment of happy stakeholders. This article lays out excellent ideas but it would be better if Maoz was more specific in how to develop the strategy. She is vague and states that companies should carefully lay out a strategy and insure that the customers have a voice. Well duh, I could have said that without writing 6 pages. She does do a great job explaining how CRM's will help companies. She states that CRM's will help firms with every aspect of business. This showcases how big a role technology is playing and will continue to play in the future of business. She states that marketing is the biggest use for CRM's. CRM's will allow customers to have a voice and to be informed about firms and their products. This is a double edged sword in my opinion. Customers will be able to share their ideas with companies. Which is a good thing when the customers are saying positive things. When customers want to speak negative about a company, companies will have to go out of their way to appease these customers and to perform damage control so one disgruntled customer doesn't spread their negative experience to other customers. We see this in how companies on Twitter will now give people incentives if they promise not to tweet negatively about the company.

    Rozwell's case shows how Social Media is an ever increasing segment of marketing departments. A few years back social media wasn't important at all to firms and now every firm is allocating some resources to social media. This shows how important social media is becoming in our global society and how this new trend cannot be ignored or companies will suffer in their profitability and long term growth. Rozwell also states that it is important for companies to know how to properly use social media. Using social media in the wrong way could either deem it pointless or dangerous. That's why she touches on the important to adhering to the social media guidelines. These guidelines will insure that companies and their customers will have a good rapport. For example, employees must exercise decorum when engaging in social media technology because everything they say online represents the firm as a whole. If they say the wrong thing they will not only hurt the firm but they might also find themselves out of a job. This shows how we are all losing our freedoms online. Back in the day we use to be able to say whatever we wanted online but now doing so could cost us getting into a school, getting a job, or loss of a job. This shows how online technologies are becoming paramount and people have to behave online as they would in society.

    Both of these articles were enjoyable reads. I felt like some parts of them touched on some obvious things but I learned a lot. I would rate them both a 9/10. I would recommend reading them.