Social Networking technology has made it incredibly easy and inexpensive for people to collaborate and work together irrespective of their physical location. Given the proliferation of high speed internet access from home and mobile devices, something unthinkable even a few years ago (remember those dial-up modems), we are increasingly going to see people from diverse backgrounds & geographies collaborate on a project and share their expertise, thanks to Social Networks.

This presents an excellent opportunity for business to tap into Cognitive Surplus, world’s spare brain power so to speak, and leverage it in a way that it is beneficial to all concerned (see this link for an excellent visualization of the size of Cognitive Surplus and refer to my earlier post titled Cognitive Surplus: Implications for Social CRM for more on the subject).

Quirky, a Social product development company is a very good example of not only collaborative work, but also of how influencers can be rewarded for their contribution (see the last column of any product’s page on Quirky’s online store for share of each influencer in total price of the product).

Republished with author's permission from original post by Harish Kotadia, Ph.D..

What is the future of advertising in Social Age?

Well, we may get as many different answers as the number of Social Media gurus and Advertising pundits out there, which by the way is not a small number!

Watch this excellent panel discussion and listen to what four real experts have to say on this subject. The experts are:

Republished with author's permission from original post by Harish Kotadia, Ph.D..

In one of my earlier posts, I defined and explained Social CRM as “the business strategy of engaging customers through Social Media with goal of building trust and brand loyalty“. Loyalty being attitude towards a brand that inclines a customer to repurchase it and/or recommend it to others. Social CRM and Social Media are more about building trust and managing loyalty with customers than about managing relationships or transactions, which are focus areas of “traditional” CRM (for more, see this and this).

Old Spice Social Media campaign that has generated tremendous buzz, not only in Social Media but in traditional media channels as well, is a great example of Social CRM campaign where Procter & Gamble, the company that owns the brand, has very effectively engaged customers (and prospects) through Social Media with goal of building trust and brand loyalty. Watch this excellent CNN video on the subject:

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After a disappointing 2009, a year in which global tech spending fell by 4.2 percent, IT Services companies are experiencing renewed demand for their services as global tech spending rebounds this year and is set to rise by 3.8 percent, and touch $1.5 trillion according to market researcher IDC (for more, read this Businessweek article Tech Spending Is Back. And It May Even Last.

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Clay Shirky is one of the leading thinkers on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies and is well known for his talks on Cognitive Surplus. He believes that loose ­collaboration enabled by new technologies (such as Social Media) can change the way society works with the aid of “spare” brainpower.

Listen to to his inspiring TED@State talk about how cellphones, Twitter and Facebook can make history and his talk at TED@Cannes on how cognitive surplus will change the world. Thinkers and practitioner of Social CRM can learn many valuable lessons from these two TED Talks.

Enjoy the videos and share your thoughts and comments on how we can leverage Cognitive Surplus in business, especially marketing.

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Google is one of the great success stories of internet age. Given its mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful, it has achieved remarkable success by focusing on search results and monetizing clicks. But Google’s revenue model is under threat in the age of Social Media. Facebook recently surpassed Google in the US to become the most visited website (for more, see this and this).

What should Google do to continue its dominance in the Social Age? Think outside the box, “Search” box that is! Google has done a great job focusing on its core competency of indexing content on the web and displaying most relevant search results without any “noise” or “clutter” on the screen. And this is what made Google so popular in the first place.

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In my previous post titled Social Media: The New Front End of CRM System, I highlighted how Social Media has empowered customers like never before as they discuss about brands/products and their likes/dislikes on Social Media channels. This presents an invaluable and “never before” opportunity to learn from customers in real-time. For this, companies need to Listen and Learn from what customers are saying and Engage them in meaningful conversations.

Social Media channels can generate tremendous amount of information and customers decide the format and content of information. It is no longer enough just to have a database as in traditional CRM systems since companies don’t control content and format of information. We need Knowledge-base to effectively learn from customers and engage them on Social Media channel. Social Media monitoring is not enough and companies need to invest in Knowledge Management tools to continuously learn and evolve. Knowledge Management comprises of ‘a range of strategies and practices used to identify, create, represent, distribute and enable adoption of insights and experiences’.

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Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems have undergone a fascinating technological transformation over the last decade, starting as client-server apps, followed by web-enabled CRM apps (where users can access CRM application over internet using their web browsers).

But in spite of this technological transformation and progress in system architecture, all CRM systems essentially record transactional information using pre-determined fields on the screen (front-end) to capture information in the database, and company is in total control of conversation (should I say interrogation) with customer at every stage.

Thanks to rapid expansion of reach and effectiveness of Social Media channels, this is about to change. Social Media has empowered customers like never before as they can discuss about brands/products on Social Media channels and companies have no control over what customers are saying about their brands/products. This discussion is visible to all including other customers, potential customers and competitors.

The best any marketer can do is to Listen and Learn from what customers are saying and Engage them in meaningful conversations. In other words, treat Social Media channels as the front-end of CRM system, capture all relevant information from Social Media channels in the database and use Predictive Analytics and Knowledge Management tools to derive insights and help in decision making.

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SaaS CRM (Software as a Service) has been around for a while. Salesforce.com, one of the largest service providers in SaaS CRM space has been around for more than ten years and has been listed on NYSE for almost six years now. I can still recall the day Salesforce.com was listed on NYSE, having seen a giant banner with the letters “CRM” (ticker symbol of Salesforce.com) on NYSE building on that day on my way to work in lower Manhattan, where I was working as a CRM Program Manager for a Fortune Top 10 client (on how many occasions you get to see “CRM” banner on NYSE building!)

But inspite of the fact that SaaS CRM has been around for a decade, it is not as popular or widespread as what some might have expected it to be by now. I think this is about to change. As I noted in my previous post, four independent trends, namely Social Media, Smart Phones, Predictive Analytics and SaaS are now converging to bring about a Paradigm Shift in CRM.

In particular, Social Media will drive adoption of cloud computing/SaaS CRM going forward. Some of the key reasons why I think this is likely to happen are as follows:

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Having watched the CRM (R)evolution for over a decade, I am very excited about the developments that have taken place over the last few years. Four important technological trends have the potential to fundamentally change the way organizations “manage” relationship with their customers and revolutionize CRM. These tech trends are:

• Social Media
• Smart Phones/Portable Devices
• Cloud Computing/SaaS
• Predictive Analytics

All these four independent trends are now converging to bring about a Paradigm Shift in CRM.

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