Big data enables understanding of complex customer sentiments and intent which improves service management. Today it is easier to process customer sentiments and intents through social media and develop social customer relationship management or social CRM. To make this effective it is important to capture the natural language knowledge and rapidly and securely making those insights available to tye best pay off channels. 

This podcasts bring together customer analytics services provider Attensity, with its natural language processing technology, and HP Vertica with Big data analytics capabilities to explain how effectively listen to social Web and rapidly gaining valuable insights and actionable intelligence.

Some participants are Howard Lau, chairman and CEO of Attensity, and Chris Selland, vice president of marketing and business development at HP Vertica. The discussion is moderated by Dana Gardener, principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions.

more at: http://www.crmbuyer.com/story/80826.html

The genuine number of likes measures the success of a brand. Most of the time users are forced to like pages for getting access to apps and games. So it is important that when someone likes a page he does that genuinely so that facebook gets a “quality connection”. Thus brands no longer would be able to force users to like their pages and thus this would be a positive change for brands and agencies as well. As users are shifting towards mobile facebook the “like gate” strategy of making users like pages forcefully won’t work anymore and now brand need to provide stronger reasons to users for liking their page. Thus a genuine relationship is created. Now it should be more important to reach out to customers that count than counting customers.

This strategy would provide grace period for adjusting and affects local marketers mostly. Brands should pamper their customers than just feeding them up with incentives. They should have a long term strategy than a tactical one. Marketers should not only cherish the number of fans but also engage more with each piece of content.

read more at: http://www.marketing-interactive.com/facebook-initiates-new-policy-for-genuine-fans/

Unless cyber bullying is resolved and removal of objectionable content is done, major social media websites and apps are going to get a check from an Australian government official. They might also be named and shamed if they do not act properly. An e-safety commissioner is to be appointed by Paul Fletcher, the parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Communications, who will be the central point of contact for children, parents and law enforcement agencies. He would also fly regularly overseas to establish informal relationships with people. He would be given the responsibility to travel when any new site is made and make them understand that they might be told to take out objectionable posts if they do not fulfil their expectation.

The sites must have complaining schemes for objectionable content and terms of use defining cyber bullying. Education should be given against cyber bullying. Several sites have objected to the appointment of an e-commissioner because that might threaten free speech and claimed that industry oversight might serve the purpose better. Read more at: http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/were-watching-you-social-media-sites-face-being-named-

Cloud CRM software is a serious business investment in today's competitive environment. Out of 5279 CRM buyers 68 percent were either use non-industry specific software or manual methods like spreadsheets and paper notes to manage customer relationships. Commercial CRM is preferred to a proprietary solution. It was discovered that 9 percent customers wanted a cloud based CRM and a majority wanted to evaluate best of breed solutions over an integrated suite. Sales force automation was the top best of breed buyers and integrated suite. Nine percent wanted an integrated suite or even multiple applications. 

CRM software should have a good long run sustaining contact management as having a 360 degree view helps increase cross sell and upsell opportunities. It should have a good note taking capability for tracking customer information. Integrating with third party systems is also important. The reporting and analytics feature is also useful for staying informed and is advantageous to both customer and the organization and dashboards help getting a single view of activities.

Sales force automation was the best requested CRM application among integrated suite and best of breed buyers representing 76 percent of companies evaluating best of breed solutions and nearly 75 percent of people interested into integrated suites. 

Read more at http://www.business-standard.com/article/management/top-trends-in-crm-software-purchases-114080300625_1.html 

The dependence of organizations on software have increased over the decade, so reducing bandwidth and maximizing data through software integration for optimal process has also become necessary. Thus CRM and telephony are the most widely used tools today. The phone/CRM scenarios are: 

No integration:  if one enters the name and phone number of the person in the CRM software and then call the person by phone then the conversation gets automatically recorded and can be used for future review purpose.

Partial integration: if the phone system is partially integrated with the CRM then one call within the CRM platform and the phone calls get automatically logged.

Full integration: it is applicable for both incoming and outgoing calls. When a call comes the number is searched in the CRM database and then for a new number a CRM lead is offered. And for old number the call gets diverted to the responsible staff who identifies the call records and details.

Options available for phone and CRM integrations are: 

Trough CRM software with integrated telephony such as Bitrix24 which is free and TalkDesk does not require any set up.

Otherwise the existing CRM can be used if it is of Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics and readymade integration with IP telephony providers such as RingCentral or RingDNA can be used. Read more at:  http://www.business2community.com/customer-experience/telephony-crm-match-made-heaven-0946844#!bwfcpF

Google search algorithms affect around 90% of online searches. These strip out bad searches, sites with keywords, duplicated content and manipulated hyperlinks based on quality, originality and relevance of online content. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) needs to change, we cannot build links like we use to and are more focused on content making. Business still has the need of a SEO professional in a more changed and creative way and aware about how to implement basic optimization. Content written by a reputable journalist or blogger is ranked higher by Google. Google gives importance to the engagement of the user with the content than paid for content. SEO agencies focused on link manipulation through “black hat” techniques and keyword-focused methods of SEO are going out of business while those focused on content marketing are thriving. There is now less differences between the roles of PR, social media, SEO and digital marketing. It is important to create brand value and have good, creative content and be technical sounding. Thus to offer so much for content writing increased collaboration is required creating their own digital newsrooms for real-time marketing strategies. This would maximize on the benefits.

Expansion of SEO is never a threat to PR professionals. PR might now become a part of the SEO agency team as the skill of the former is more vital than before. Google changes are now more human-friendly and people now search online using questions and complex phrases than just stand-alone keywords and content makers solve this with SEO in mind.

 Read more at: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jul/28/google-seo-social-media-search-marketing-panda-penguin- 

Every business big or small requires using CRM. This includes being organized in tasks, events, meetings, emails, notes, data etc, enhancing communication between team members, better reports, metrics and analytics, customer status and need updates, communication record and history, tracking and scheduling, and availability of centralised data for easy access and data protection.

Information needs to be available to sales personnel outside the office as well which brings in the need for mobile CRM. It allows employees’ to access information anywhere improving sales performance and team information collaboration. Collection and recording of information is made easier with mobile CRM, easy updates on source cuts the waiting time of the sales personnel in getting back to the office and then updating through CRM.

read more at:  http://www.whatech.com/crm/blog/25523-smbs-do-i-really-need-a-mobile-crm

Social media addiction is quiet similar to any other addition. Disclosing information through social media generates similar sensation as eating or drinking and it can be as addicting as drug. Social media helps you contact with people without any risk. You can control what you show, you look, voice, emotions are not exposed. Little kids should be controlled on the time and extent of usage of internet and parents should have all the information about what they are doing on the web. Kids should not have any secrets. Adults along with children also get addicted to social media. When someone posts in the middle of a crisis or ignores the person next to him for posting on social media he is believed to be addicted. read m http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2014/07/26/study-social-media-my-be-just-as-addicting-as-other-vices-drugs-and-drinking/ore

Growth in social media networking with increased logging into Facebook and twitter accounts has been accounted to be about 37 % in 2013 according to trends in digital marketing, media and commerce. Though the global rate might be less the growth rate in India of social networking has been high especially in urban areas. India has recorded the second highest number of Facebook users and is likely to become the largest number of Facebook users in 2016. A survey by Internet and Mobile Association of India found that there has been a 50% increase after 2012 in Facebook use, 33 million in Twitter and 20 million on LinkedIn. Social media being the next being frontier is definitely unavoidable and has become an imperative part of a holistic marketing strategy benefiting businesses reducing costs and improving customer services. Corporate and B-schools give latest promoting strategies and marketing strategies through social media. Read more at: http://www.hindustantimes.com/technology/socialmedia-updates/india-records-highest-social-networking-growth-study/article1-1244761.aspx 

Realizing the rising importance of social media in any business every brand needs fourteen tools to make things simpler. They are: 1. Visual Google analytics report: this app creates a custom infographic of the company’s website activity and performances from complicated Google data. It delivers straight to the company’s inbox- the reasons for its win so that it can improve next time. 2. TweetDeck: it is a twitter based management tool gives one an overall aspect of their profile and also customizes the display and reduces navigation problems.

3. HootSuite: this app allows to manage multiple social media profiles at the same time. It allows to delegate between responses to fans and followers and responses coordination of responses and potentially overlooking fans is not required. But it has a backdrop of not being able to make images appear.

4. Sprout Social: it cleans interface and a dashboard built around six tabs, namely home, messages, feeds, publishing, discovery and reports. It suggests people to follow and schedules updates in advance.

5. Crowdbooster: it streamlines and schedules posts for twitter and Facebook, reminds followers one has not responded to and lists recent influential followers. It also directs growth and engagement metrics.

6. Twitter showdown: it compares twitter accounts of two industries and compares two competitors by finding the follower to following ratio, level of tweet engagement, mentions per tweet, tweet timing etc.

7. Edgerank Checker: it helps to understand how followers interact with each post by assigning a score and makes recommendations to assist future posts. 8. Buffer: A useful tool for small businesses with less time and resource. It helps to schedule posts and makes sharing easier but is not applicable for monitoring discussions. 

9. SocialBro: it provides insight to analytics, suggestions for targeting and engagement and highlights the key influencers and competitors. 10. Postling: it tracks responses, brands and people. Every mention of one’s brand is tracked easily. 11. Tailwind: it tracks your company, product and competitors and most profitable activities.

12. Social Mention: it scrapes user generated content across internet, and recent relevant results and metrics.

13. Shoutlet: it helps companies to understand its market, grow on social database and supplies all customers and fans need. 14. Argyle Social: it establishes the most valuable content ensuring efforts and value to marketing strategies. Read more at: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/231851

Relying on very basic customer information such as demographics to influence marketing campaigns and limited internal sources and fragmented marketing systems limits sending personalized mails to customers. For companies having multiple marketing agencies and technology partners demographics cannot alone give a complete view of audiences as it leaves other important information. Customer relationship management programs relies on basic data which excludes customer nuances and encourages the mentality that marketers own and drive customer conversation which is no longer true. Due to CRM programs customers put little effort in knowing their customers. On the other hand using resources which contains a vast array of information about the customers enables a better interaction between customers and the brand. Customer Managed Relationship is the better option over CRM these days. To achieve a personal connection with customers, marketers should follow three key rules, namely communication, consistency and trust. Witty comments, 24/7 service or multichannel experience, sending similar number of mails in similar language and color schemes in all channels, personal messages, giving consumers what they expect might do the trick.

Engaging with different channels to get a better understanding of customers and targeting customers specifically using CMR is important. Brands should use CMR based marketing strategy to consider customers purchase behavior and social engagement. Further brands can create rich, useful content to guide customers into repeat purchases. Customers now want to tell brands how to engage with them using necessary technology instead of brands driving into a conversation with customers. Thus all marketers have to listen and adapt.

Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/marketing/crm-dead-now-0947236#!bibims

In the world where responding to customers online promptly has become so important having a successful social CRM has become compulsory way of business.

According to Meg Bar, a comprehensive platform which comprises of rich listening, monitoring and engaging capabilities integrated with sales, marketing, service and commerce is a priority.

According to Justyn Howard, an unequipped social medium where social help requests are mismanaged can be a reason of frustration for customers. Only putting marketing and PR professionals behind the wheel is never an efficient solution.

As Katya Constantine says social media tools like Simply Measured or Peak Analytics links the brand to the most loyal users and builds a managed relationship with them. Further, retaining those customers through client loyalty code, a prospect discount code, positive feedback notes and snail-mailed brand goodies is also important according to Stacey Acevero. Moreover, using list and group features like Clients, Prospects who have considered us, positive feedback from clients and desired client or influencers for engaging each segment is also a good idea.

Having a two way conversation with consumers instead of just pushing information to them and realising the importance of feedback by engaging customers as fast as possible is also necessary as according to Constantine and Brian Coughlin.

Further as others add that having a human touch to the conversation which follows the brand image, monitoring customer conversations for fast reply, not feeding on trolls by responding to inflammatory and controversial statements, unifying and centralizing customer related communication, posting frequently asked questions (FAQ), and giving importance to basic CRM functions is also important.

read more at : http://www.cio.com/article/2385481/customer-relationship-management/17-tips-for-achieving-social-crm-success.html 

The blend of social media and customer relationship management referred to as social CRM enhances traditional CRM and engages it with social media which tracks new leads from Twitter and Facebook into the sales funnel. According to Jon Ferrara, CEO of Nimble, realizing the importance of authentic and relevant human connections in business customer relationship management has become an integral part of our lives. Customers nowadays want to connect with the real people they do business with and get delighted and empowered resulting in a renaissance of customer management. Nowadays marketing has gone beyond just driving customers to get the order. Today customers have moved beyond commercials, glossy stick marketing materials and “Slick Willy” sales people. They now can have converse online and expect relevant conversations. Instead of pushing customers to just buy their products social businesses should become a part of the marketing and buyer funnel adding value to those conversations to become trust worthy. Markets are utilizing the new technology today where conversations happen already in public, private and in others various mediums. Companies instead of controlling conversations and employees they should educate and empower both employees and customers. Companies now empower their customer-facing team members to share content and engage on a worldwide basis, and they understand that they are selling to a community comprising influencers, editors, analysts, tech partners, third party developers, value-added resellers etc. empowering, educating and adding value results in success which breeds success.

read more at: http://www.exacttarget.com/blog/how-social-media-and-crm-work-together-successfully/

WhatsApp and Snapchat being simple and ubiquitous are now the perfect crossroads of mobile and social media. A new study suggests that in spite of forcing the top five global digital platforms namely Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft to evolve. Apps like Line and WhatsApp have still not been able to reach a massive scale yet. Mobile and social strategies of majority marketers being immature are being unable to utilize the growing opportunities properly and bring a clear return. In reality these messaging apps at the cross road of mobile and social only complicate the challenge according to Thomas Husson. New developments are being made recently to have a frictionless mode of communication but the idea is still new and yet to be successful. Read more at: http://www.cio.com/article/2454370/social-media/are-messaging-apps-the-future-of-social-networking.html

Consumers these days are using social media for communications. Mention of brand names is done in huge numbers among which 76 percent mentions were neutral, 17.6 percent were positive and 5.8 percent were negative. . Majority of the neutral mentions comprises of queries about the company’s process and products.

Apart from increasing engagement, building brand awareness and marketing this study has been found to play a major role in customer service.  The names of companies are mentioned on social media more on weekdays than on weekends. Moreover most posts are mentioned in English followed by French and Spanish. Thus social media is a tool for global communication and social mentions increases exposure. Read more at:http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/social-media-equals-modern-day-customer-service-43281/

Checking emails have become the primary activity for smart phone and tablet users. Thus informing patients about new health care services through emails have become compulsory. Images are the best method of interacting with, informing and empowering patients.  This is because brain processes visual data faster which consists of 90% of the transmitted data. Twitter these days have become the best medium to interact with the aging population who consumes a major portion of the health services. In 2014, more than 50% internet users will redeem a digital coupon which can be used by partners for patient cost saving and adherence.  Marketing needs to be done on multiple platforms and for many devices because the internet device connection has become vast which includes Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The reviews of previous patients' online matters the most as 90% people get influenced by peer recommendations. Among the 10.3 billion Google searchers and 78% internet users a major portion hit the top links. Thus the top hits of any organization conclude the bottom line. Content marketing is cheaper than traditional marketing and generates an income 3 times as many leads. So for any strategy the target audience and their choices are to be realized first. Patients receiving newsletters along with emails spend more and are more informed. Most patients prefer articles to direct advertisements. Thus advertising campaigns along with patient experience testimonies, community reviews are important to highlight work being done inside out. Read more at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/nicolefisher/2014/07/15/10-things-hospital-leadership-need-to-know-about-social-media-and-marketing/

Social media has become the most important tool for connecting to a broad range of online customers at the same time. But because of its indirect ways it is difficult to measure the immediate results. According to Conduct Marketing Institute only 58 percent of marketers believe that social media is effective in spite of major businesses spending time and money for making their presence on these media. Interviews and studies have shown that five out of six millennial of youngsters between the ages of 18-36 years prefer social networking sites to interact with brands. But youngsters across most countries prefer some kind of incentives while they interact with the brands online. The study also revealed that most youngsters use at least two internet devices a day and pick up their phones 43 times on an average. Facebook has been found to be most popular among young followed by YouTube which has also been found quiet influential. Other sites include Twitter, LinkedIn etc.

Thus social media is definitely worth investing in and getting include in one’s content strategy if young consumers are its target audience.

Read more at:  http://www.castleford.com.au/blog/2014/is-social-media-the-best-way-to-reach-young-consumers

A global provider of SaaS based mobile life sciences customer relationship management solutions brings in new enhancement to its product StayinFront Touch RX(R) which can run both on iPad and Windows 8 tablet devices. This is very helpful since it provides better access to critical information and data resources which makes the work simpler and maximizes the impact while working with reps in field. It also enables access of sales territories, analytics and reports, track call activities streamline Time off Territory requests and execute field coaching reports. Viewing and tracking information and progress has become easier. They have more access to detailed information with better targeting and enhanced calendar which improves reps’ ability to more effectively manage and sell in their territories and eliminates the need to toggle between systems to see all scheduled appointments.

Stayin Front is a provider of full suite of mobile, cloud based field force effectiveness and CRM for consumer goods and life science organizations. Vast number of countries use it to make their work easier and to improve their business. Read more at: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/newest-release-of-stayinfront-crm-for-life-sciences-delivers-a-single-mobile-device-system-for-reps-and-managers-2014-07-14 

Big data contains consumer information including transaction data, demographic information, buying patterns, CRM data etc., collected across multiple platforms. The data gives an insight to the customers' preferences of support options, desired communication mode, future buying patterns, impactful promotions, etc. Big data provides better customer service in several ways. Using predictive analysis tools organizations can now predict a customers' next move also. Big data using these tools helps the organization to predict customers' present and future preferences, drive real-time decisions, increase customer retention and increase profitability. More than 77 percent marketers agree that individualized messages and offers are more effective than mass messages and offers, which can drive engagement, boost sales and increase conversions. Usage of Omni channel marketing strategy increases client retention rates and bring superior financial results. Using data to create a cross-platform customer engagement strategy ensures highest customer service. A multichannel shopping experience shapes a brand's story generating revenue and customer loyalty. In two years smartphone users will be more than basic phone users, mobile service increases at the rate of 7 percent annually. Thus best customer experience is delivered through mobile channels for high performance organizations. Unable to ignore the potentiality of social media big brands register tens of thousands of social media interactions every day. There are wide range of options available. Communication through online communities reduces call center costs. Read more at:
http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/5-ways-big-data-can-enhance-customer-service-62054

According to Mark Zuckerberg the potential of improving business through social media is very high. Sponsored ads appear everywhere nowadays in all social media platforms. If your ads are of quality customer service and eye catching visuals you can convert visitors to loyal customers. But there are few strategies required to gain from the use of social media. Firstly, be active but do not be overactive. One needs to have knowledge about how much his competitors are posting and then decide on how much to post every day. Compiling all content in an easy to read editorial calendar is a good idea which can be further separated by social channels. Secondly, ach channel should be treated as an individual entity. The content which might be spread across all channels should be adjusted depending on the audience for that channel. For example, LinkedIn has more business focused audience while Instagram has audiences looking for engaging visual content. Thirdly, tweets or other feedbacks made by customers should be answered properly and quickly. While positive feedbacks are to be responded with acknowledgements negative feedbacks should be dealt with patience and respect. Fourthly, one should accept their mistakes made on their posts. But reposting several times is not a good idea. One can send out content from their social accounts to make the customers aware. Fifthly, metrics important to one's business should be reviewed monthly, like number of posts, follower growth, clicks, page views, likes and shares etc. Tracking can be done by free tools like bit.ly, Google analytics etc. Lastly, being active on Google+ helps you to receive essential free ad space when users search for you on Google. Read more at:  http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/01/09/social-media-marketing-strategies