The real underlying power in Social Media is a new customer experience model. Too many hip "social media campaigns" failed because it was just old ideas blasted into a new world. Too much money was invested in fan pages or online community that became dormant after just 3 or 6 month - or worst - was never adopted.
"Anybody experience with..."
Social media is about the most often asked question: "Anybody experience with...". Customers asking for help from real users, real customers - names they would never get from the respective business. Over 160,000 Toyota driver, 65,000 John Deere customers, 50,000 IBM customer, 25,000 SAP customers, 10,000 Dow Chemical customers... customers in all industries for all types of products asked those questions and most found answers. You are right - this is not 100% of their respective customer base - but these are the most vocal and therefor most influential people. Neither business processes automation, nor the next generation CRM, or a marketing campaign or yet another survey can help. If you and your team are not part of the conversation - your influence is ZERO.
The new customer experience model
Social Media in a business world is NOT having a LinkedIn profile, is NOT listening to tweets of somebody walking their dog and is NOT browsing through facebook pages. Social media in business is first and foremost "The New Customer Experience Model".
1) Create a thorough social media assessment
2) Craft a good old SWOT analysis
3) Create a sound social media strategy
4) Build your resource and budget plan
5) Develop a social media execution plan
All need to be interwoven with your business objectives.
You will notice that the tools are secondary - the new mindset for a better customer experience primary.
Leverages your team, your partners, your customers, vendors and others to become part of the conversation - not the old "message blasting one way street" - no - a meaningful and mutually beneficial conversation with your customers, your prospects and the rest of the market.
The Tools Selection
Only once you have all your ducks in a row you will select the platforms, places, and tools for your social presence. Then you select the reporting systems to measure, model and tune your progress and success.
The Social Media Academy is running a complementary webinar [1] this week July 10th. which is all about the new customer experience model, case studies, methods, frameworks, reporting tools and ways to make it happen.