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Social Media, Is It Too Distra . . . SQUIRREL!

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This week we're counting down the Top 5 posts published to Voice of Vovici in 2010. At #5 is this post by Nancy Porte, originally published August 31.

It’s eight months into the New Year and, while many of my personal 2010 Resolutions have faded into distant memory, The Nancy-Bruce Project is going strong.  For those of you new to this project, my plan is to work through the list of 7 keys to Customer Experience in 2010 set forth by Bruce Temkin for building a best-in-class Voice of the Customer program and blog about my progress. 

The third item on Bruce’s list is “Keep from getting too distracted by social media”.  With this goal, the challenge is to “treat social media as one of many listening posts in a comprehensive Voice of the Customer program that examines both structured and unstructured feedback.” 

In working on our social media strategy, and reviewing articles and blogs, I am reminded of the talking dog named Dug from the movie “UP”.  Some of the funniest moments of the movie are when, in the midst of talking, he suddenly interrupts himself and says, “SQUIRREL!” He then stops what he is doing, turns towards the distraction and stares into space for a few minutes.  Eventually, he returns to what he was doing but all it takes is another “SQUIRREL!” alert to repeat the same unproductive behavior.  I started wondering if all companies really need to incorporate social media as a channel – or, like Dug, are some of us just getting distracted?  How do you know if your business should allocate the time, energy and resources to embrace a Social CRM strategy – or just sit this one out? 

Here are a few questions to ask before taking the Social CRM leap:

1. Will you be lonely? – Believe it or not, there are some customers who don’t use social media.  Some work for highly secure businesses (government contractors, military or intelligence agencies) and are behind firewalls all day.  Others don’t embrace social media as part of their daily activities.  For example, while the over-55 crowd is rapidly growing on Facebook, they still only account for 9.5% of total Facebook users.  And, with almost 80% of LinkedIn members holding college degrees, it’s not the place if your target audience is gamers between 11-17 years old.  When it comes to social media, if your customers aren’t there, you probably don’t need to be there either.
2. Can you count them on one hand? – Some businesses do very well by serving a niche market.  If your customer base is small and extremely targeted, you can maintain your social conversations directly and don’t need the scale of social media.  The exception would be if you’re a new company just getting started.  In this case, social media can help drive awareness and sales.
3. Is it too quiet? – Believe it or not, there are some large companies with little social media content.  According to Annie Pettit of Conversition, these include Sysco, ThyssenKrupp, Gazprom and Sinopec; other companies that aren’t talked about much for their size?  Chevron, Unilever, ConocoPhillips.  In this case, social media might not be a good investment for market research and analysis.
4. Are you ready?  – Is there executive support and organizational strategy around social media?  In some organizations, a single department is excited about social media.  If it’s customer service, social media looks like just another channel.  In an environment with many channels (phone, email, chat) one more doesn’t seem like a big deal.  The caution is, if you haven’t aligned your social media strategy with your customer experience strategy, you might be risking the consistency and integrity of your brand.  In social media, the conversation about your brand is controlled by your customers.  Without a sound strategy to guide your social media interactions, your enthusiasm for offering another channel for customer engagement could result in a damaged company reputation.

So, I admit that I’m approaching social media carefully.  While we have executive support and an organizational strategy, we have a robust Voice of the Customer program with many proven channels for feedback.  Some of those channels, like comments on surveys and calls into the call center, are providing much richer insight than social media.  For now social media is monitored but used selectively and cautiously.  As an enterprise software vendor, for us, it seems to be best used to identify opportunities for one-on-one technical support.

It is clear that social media can deliver a significant return on investment by creating authentic, two-way conversations with customers.  For many companies, products and services can be developed or improved, sales can increase and loyalty can be established and maintained.  But for other companies, social media can become a “SQUIRREL!” distracting the organization from more productive use of time and resources.