Social CRM: Take the Leap of Faith

In recent months, several publications, analysts and bloggers have highlighted the importance of Social Media and the need for allocating resources for Social CRM initiatives. I have published several blog posts on the subject and some of them are listed below:

• When it comes to Social Media, CEOs and CMOs should lead from the front

• Dear CMOs, Wake up to Social Media challenge

• What is Social CRM and why it is important

• Why NOW is the time to invest in Social CRM

• 2010: Year of Social CRM

• Social CRM: Top priority for CMOs

But inspite of all the attention Social CRM has received in mainstream and social media, many companies are reluctant to invest in Social media initiatives and programs. This is confirmed by findings of a recent study by Burson-Marsteller titled Global Social Media Checkup. It was found that only 20% of those surveyed used all the four Social Media channels, namely Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and Blogs to engage their stakeholders. Social Media involvement of these companies can best be described as “minimal” (see following slideshare presentation for more). And if this is the level of involvement of companies on Fortune’s Global 100 list given all their resources and marketing budget, one can imagine the Social Media involvement of lesser known companies and those with smaller marketing spend!

It is high time for marketers to take a leap of faith and invest in Social CRM initiatives in order to engage customers through Social Media channels, because customers and potential customers are on social media channels discussing about products and brands – whether the marketer is represented in the discussion or not.

Moreover, according to a recent “The CMO Survey” from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the American Marketing Association (AMA), marketers will devote nearly one-fifth of their marketing budgets to social media in the next five years (for more, see this link). Those marketers who take this leap of faith and move first in this direction will not only have first mover’s advantage, but will define standards, procedures and rules of the game.

NOW is the time for marketers to start Social Media initiatives for customer engagement and emerge as winners, rest will be laggards.

Dear CMOs, do you want to be a winner or laggard? The choice is yours!

View more presentations from Burson-Marsteller.