Word of Mouth had gained our trust.

As consumers, we’ve all experienced and usually welcomed ‘word of mouth’ information from our friends, family and peers. Long ago the marketing guru’s declared you will live or die on the word of mouth reputation of your company or product; and for the past millennium it was a personal experience, often face-to-face and it became a natural extension of our conversations wherever we shared a common interest. It is precisely this long social history and deep relationship we have with word of mouth that social network marketing imitates.

For many consumers ‘caveat emptor’ applies here.

When it comes to social media, technically speaking, it’s no longer word of mouth and it’s never face-to-face. Social Media has the feel of something personal but to a great degree it is entirely manufactured. The big stars and entertainment shows that promote some networks are paid, yet you think it’s personal. It’s an ad but doesn’t look or feel like one. It has little to do with what’s real or who is real and the lines get really blurred. So just when you thought you were following your favorite movie star, guess what: there’s an ad masking as his or her personal favorites.

Word of Net Marketing is often a poser.

The problem is that a lot of online viral marketing that poses as social media is really aimed at creating a ‘buzz’ about the product. Instead of customer’s opinions, you are likely to get skillfully crafted hype by marketing ‘posers’ that, more often than not, stresses what you should think.

In this world you don’t need satisfied customers to promote your product by word of mouth: now all you need is a powerful spin (real or imagined) and away you go! Want to make millions using Social Media? Join the masses of promoters with the fast and easy way to make a killing using social media. Their premise: From toilet paper to elixirs, there’s a surefire way to get your message in front of millions of customers who are eager to buy the product. All you need is their special brand of social media marketing and you’re all set.

Social media does work.

For legitimate social media organizations it works because the ‘buzz’ is real and real customers support the value. On a personal level you can exchange your thoughts about a product easily and usually you are sharing this among other interested users. Perhaps social media marketing is best served up to compliment the traditional word of mouth conversations, calls and personal emails. Just to be sure, I’ll check out anything I learn online face-to-face at the water cooler with my homies.

Will it last?

The life cycle of any latest and greatest media tool is unpredictable for most of the stuff floating around the Internet. I suspect it lasts right up to the time something else replaces it. But based on SM’s ever growing popularity, there’s no end in sight for the magic of social media networking.

MosaicCRM Experts Tips – CRM & Social Media Integration

If relationship marketing is important to your organization, managing and collecting social network data and transposing this into your CRM program is radically different from the traditional historical based ‘interaction-transaction’ type recording. There’s a lot of talk about ‘Social CRM’ but hang on a minute, adapting traditional CRM with all the tools that work is possible, even preferred.

• Social networking requires you to adapt CRM to recognize the instant real time data and transpose this into live response data

• More than ever customer centric response models are vital: Re-engineer your CRM to optimize this closed loop marketing process
• Evaluate the type and degree of customer information needed to assist sales efforts in this medium

• Use CRM to spread the results of the customer experience within your organization

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Written by Bill Noonan, Founder and CEO of MosaicCRM.

I welcome your inquiries, questions and comments.

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