We live in a hyper social world and that’s also where you will find your customers sharing their opinions, offering compliments and voicing their complaints about your products/services. Facebook and Twitter are the two most commonly used social networks but there are many others. It is difficult to separate customer relationship management from social media management; however, just having social CRM alone isn’t adequate. You will need to choose a management solution that fits your company and then develop guidelines and strategies that work within it.

Let’s look at how you can create a successful social CRM strategy.

#1 You Need the Right Resources
Social networks allow you an opportunity like never before to deliver your customers great service. However, your team is setup to solve problems it can be a frustrating experience for your customers. Consumers are extremely impatient with hold times on the phone, but they are also becoming impatient with how social help requests are handled, so keep this in mind.

#2 You Need a Solid Platform to Conduct Social CRM
You want to choose a comprehensive social media management platform so that you have quality listening, top-notch engagement capabilities and the ability to monitor. Your social platform needs to seamlessly integrate with your CRM system and it should be customer centered. Off point solutions are a thing of the past.

#3 Reward Your Customers That Are Loyal
Those customers that exclusively engage with your brand via social media should be rewarded. You can create a loyalty code to keep those customers. You can also offer a discount code for prospects to entice them to make that purchase. If a customer leaves a positive feedback, reward them by sending them out a personalized message with a discount offer. Send it via snail mail for extra impact.

#4 Identify Who Your Social Influencers are and then Engage Them
Use the social media tools available to you to identify who is responsible for driving the most conversation around your brand. Then reach out to those individuals and start to build a relationship with them. Measured Analytics is an excellent tool to use here.

#5 Remember to Talk to Your Customers
If you want to build a powerful social media presence, you will need to engage your customers and visitors in two-way conversation don’t just shove information out there for them. No one likes to be talked at.

Implement these 5 tips to help you get the most out of your social CRM endeavors.