The discussion of who owns social media activities within an organization is not a new one.
I can only imagine that when the dinosaurs put together their companies and brands, the triceratops in HR were fighting with the brontosauruses in the PR department while all the velociraptors in marketing were off doing their own thing unbeknownst to everyone else.
Eventually the CTEO (Chief Tyrannosaurus Executive Officer) had to be brought in to show his teeth. Even the Customer Service Compsognathuses (Compies) were pissed and thought they should be in the running, after all they are the most customer-facing branch of BeeCee, Inc.
If your company or brand has recently undergone adapting an enterprise social media framework, you’re probably familiar with these kinds of “turf wars”. If your company has yet to take that step, get ready.
When it comes to a Social CRM, the same question of ownership should arise, but ironically the answer is more than likely going to be different than the one you landed on for who’s controlling social media.
You’re On My Lawn
The answer to this conundrum is “Sales, Marketing & PR”. This isn’t one of those posts that holds the answer from you until the end. Your time is precious, so now you know.
This is why…
Almost every department within an organization can make a strong case as to why they should be involved in social and that’s why most social teams should be composed of people from most involved parties and headed up by a strong social media leader. When it comes to Social CRM though, it’s going to connect and enhance your company’s current CRM, meaning Sales is going to have a large claim to a controlling piece.
In most circumstances, this is where Occam’s Razor comes into play, we say “Sales” and all head for the bar, but this is a Social CRM, so the rules are a bit different.
Marketing is a natural choice to add to the mix of who owns Social CRM because they understand almost better than any other department what the brand stands for and how the messages are best received. Additionally, the conversations and metrics obtained from the Social CRM will show marketing areas of interest and possibly new demographics to research and understand.
Be sure to have a conversation with your marketing director when you bring in the Social CRM and come to an understanding of what metrics they would like to see and conversations they would like to contribute to.
Sure, marketing and sales are pretty obvious choices, but the problem with both sales and marketing is that they know very well how to talk at people, but aren’t very trained in how to talk with people. That’s where PR comes in.
A well-trained PR person has frontline experience in dealing with people and thinking quickly on their feet in the midst of fires. Metrics might not be as important to your PR team member, but they’ll be able to correspond to those real-time issues with the company’s message and keeping the brand as a whole in tact in mind.
The A Team
So, that’s your team: Sales, Marketing and PR/Communications.
Make sure whoever is heading up the implementation of the Social CRM is in constant communication with those three departments and, with regards Social CRM, they work as one entity. Because, let’s face it, even though a company is made up of many different departments, in the customers’ eyes you’re one entity and if anyone is left out of the conversation, it will look bad on everyone.
Thoughts?
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Hello Joe,
This is a great way to help flesh out and resolve Social CRM issue before they arrise as well as helping companies currently engaged in Social CRM to do a “level set”. And thanks for answering the question early on – it only made me what to read on.
My best.
@kjellfish Thanks!
Joey,
You’re missing a HUGE participant at the party – customer service. Here’s a short post from a few years ago discussing the same issue with excellent comments and discussion from some of the leading minds in the world. http://ow.ly/8zpCt
What we’ve learned in the last few years is that greater alignment between traditionally detached business functions is required if organizations are truly embrace and leverage the power that social channels provide.
Kind regards,
Brian
@BrianVellmure Hey Brian, thanks for bringing up the presence of customer service. They are one of the KEY departments necessary in running and understanding a social media plan within an organization. They’re experience on the front lines with people is unmatched within most industries.
The reason I left them out of this post is simply because this was discussing the necessary components of a Social CRM. It won’t delve too deeply into dealing with customer complaints and is more in line with understanding prospects and keeping those conversations running smoothly.
Although I would never suggest a social media strategy without the inclusion of the customer service department, I don’t feel their presence is as vitally important to the Social CRM, but I agree that they should have been mentioned, so thank you for bringing them up and pointing out my leaving them from the post. They are a vital part to any successful social media strategy.
Cheers!
@joey_strawn @BrianVellmure
Hi Joey,
Thanks for your response. I apologize for the delay in response.
I believe there is a bit of confusion related to terminology. You can exclude Customer Service in your social media strategy, but not your Social CRM Strategy. By definition, it’s in there.
Please forgive the dropping of links, but there is a whole body of work out there that helps clarify some of this confusion. Here’s a collection that references some of those resources. http://ow.ly/8J98D – hopefully an update will be completed soon.
Also, please take a look at who the scrm_ac follows for further insights and learnings. These are genuinely some of the world’s most recognized experts on the topic of Social CRM.
Additionally, here’s an expanded list of good folks to follow on the topic: https://twitter.com/#!/BrianVellmure/scrm-socialcrm
@JulieTyios thanks Julie!
@okeefechelsea Stegosaurus!
Congratulations on a much needed niche to explore and explain. I will be following the site and your new software tool with much interest.
@MichaelRHStewart Michael, thanks for stopping by and leaving your comment. It’s nice to know the message is resonating with people. I’ll be thrilled to converse with you more as we roll more content out. Welcome!
@MatthewRay Actually Matt I do. Just me and no one else
@mikefixs Agreed! but better once it’s lead by a team that understands/sets expectations of the flow of information/data
@MatthewRay Absolutely – training and followup are critical.
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