Social CRM in Irish SMEs

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Figure 1: Wordle Tag Cloud

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Dissertation in a Tag Cloud

This dissertation contains over 80 pages and 16,000 words. Upon completion, all text

was inserted in to a tag cloud generator using wordle.net [1]. The most popular / most

mentioned keywords are larger and bolder in appearance, so the tag cloud below sums

up in a series of words what has been covered in this dissertation.

One of several tag clouds created for this dissertation were uploaded to social photo

sharing site flickr.com, licenced under a creative commons licence and published on

mashable.com in an article titled „Why Sales Is Still Missing From Social CRM‟ [2],

written by Umberto Milletti, CEO of InsideView which is a sales intelligence / social crm

provider [3].

Mashable.com have a following of over 2.2 million on twitter and 460,000 fans on their

Facebook page. This is a perfect example of how social media can extend an

individual‟s or a business‟ reach beyond imagination, in quite literally seconds.

A „worthless‟ image which happened to be uploaded online to a photo sharing site, by

chance, was found through social media and published on one of the world‟s largest

technology news websites.

Social CRM in Irish SMEs Dissertation in a Tag Cloud

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Acknowledgements

[edited]

Social CRM in Irish SMEs Acknowledgements

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Abstract

Social media has changed the way we communicate and today over half of the Irish population now has a Facebook profile. Facebook didn‟t exist eight years ago. Irish businesses are beginning to realise they must follow in their customer‟s footsteps and not only monitor online conversation but take part in it. As customers, businesses know we‟re no longer looking up phone directories to contact them or hand writing letters of complaint… we‟re searching for information online and publishing our thoughts to the world through social media. If businesses aren‟t online or aren‟t participating in conversation, it‟s their loss. If they don‟t want to respond to customers, get feedback, generate new leads and increase customer loyalty, that‟s their decision. Few business however, have the luxury of being able to ignore social media and still survive, compete and monitor what all their customers are saying about them. Social Customer Relationship Management (Social CRM) as the name suggests, is all about managing relationships with customers through the use of social media. It‟s a business strategy and by using Social CRM tools and technology, businesses can store information about their customers, analyse it, perhaps discover patterns or trends and try to make strategic business decisions based on that information.

Social CRM in Irish SMEs Abstract

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Contents

Dissertation in a Tag Cloud ............................................................................................. 3

Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................... 4

Abstract ........................................................................................................................... 5

List of Figures.................................................................................................................. 9

Chapter 1 - Introduction ................................................................................................. 10

1.1 Scope .................................................................................................................. 10

1.2 Objectives ........................................................................................................... 10

1.3 Chapter Overview ................................................................................................ 11

Chapter 2 – What is Social CRM? ................................................................................. 12

2.1 What is Social CRM? ........................................................................................... 12

2.1.1 What is CRM? .............................................................................................. 13

2.1.2 What is Social Media? .................................................................................. 14

2.1.3 What is an SME? .......................................................................................... 14

2.1.4 Why only Irish SME's? .................................................................................. 14

2.2 Why is Social CRM the future of business? ......................................................... 15

Chapter 3 - Why is Social CRM important? ................................................................... 18

3.1 The 1% theory ................................................................................................. 18

3.2 Opportunities ....................................................................................................... 19

3.2.1 Crowd Sourcing ............................................................................................ 21

3.2.2 Improved Customer Support ......................................................................... 22

3.2.3 Lead Generation ........................................................................................... 23

3.2.4 Feedback ...................................................................................................... 24

3.2.5 Collaboration / Innovation ............................................................................. 25

3.2.6 Mobile / Geolocation ..................................................................................... 27

3.2.7 Influence Mining ........................................................................................... 30

3.3 Drawbacks........................................................................................................... 35

3.3.1 Staff Not Trained........................................................................................... 35

3.3.2 Time Consuming........................................................................................... 36

3.3.3 Lack of Control ............................................................................................. 36

3.3.4 Measuring ROI ............................................................................................. 37

Chapter 4 - Social CRM in Ireland ................................................................................. 39

4.1 The growth of CRM and Social CRM in Ireland from 2005 - present ................ 39

4.2 Irish SMEs using social media ......................................................................... 41

4.3 Different Types of Social Media ....................................................................... 43

4.4 Irish Social Media Statistics ............................................................................. 45

Social CRM in Irish SMEs Table of Contents

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4.5 Training / Consultants ...................................................................................... 47

Chapter 5 – Tools & Software ....................................................................................... 50

5.1 Online Monitoring Tools ....................................................................................... 50

5.1.1 Google Alerts ................................................................................................ 50

5.1.2 Tweetdeck .................................................................................................... 51

5.1.3 Facebook Search.......................................................................................... 52

5.1.4 Twitter Search .............................................................................................. 53

5.1.5 Social Mention .............................................................................................. 55

5.1.6 Trackur ......................................................................................................... 56

5.1.7 Cotweet ........................................................................................................ 57

5.1.8 Hootsuite ...................................................................................................... 58

5.2 CRM Software ..................................................................................................... 59

5.2.1 Sugar CRM ................................................................................................... 60

5.2.2 Salesforce..................................................................................................... 61

5.2.3 Microsoft Dynamics CRM ............................................................................. 62

5.2.4 Sage ............................................................................................................. 63

Chapter 6 – Facebook Experiment ................................................................................ 65

6.1 Why? ............................................................................................................... 65

6.2 Aims & Objectives ........................................................................................... 65

6.3 When? ............................................................................................................. 65

6.4 How? ............................................................................................................... 65

6.5 Results ............................................................................................................ 68

6.6 Conclusions ..................................................................................................... 68

6.7 Weaknesses .................................................................................................... 68

Chapter 7 - Best Practices Social CRM Strategy ........................................................... 69

7.1 Is having no strategy a strategy? ......................................................................... 69

7.2 The Five 5 M‟s ..................................................................................................... 70

7.2.1 Monitoring ..................................................................................................... 70

7.2.2 Mapping ........................................................................................................ 70

7.2.3 Management ................................................................................................. 71

7.2.4 Middleware ................................................................................................... 71

7.2.5 Measurement ................................................................................................ 71

7.3 Social Media Website Best Practices ................................................................... 72

Chapter 8 – Case Study ................................................................................................ 73

Chapter 9 - Conclusion .................................................................................................. 74

9.1 Objectives Met? ................................................................................................... 74

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9.2 Final Thoughts ..................................................................................................... 76

Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 77

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List of Figures

Figure 1: Wordle Tag Cloud ............................................................................................ 2

Figure 2: Evolution of Social CRM by Chess Media Group ............................................ 12

Figure 3: Fusion of CRM & Social Media ....................................................................... 13

Figure 4: Three elements of CRM ................................................................................. 14

Figure 5: 1% Theory Diagram ....................................................................................... 18

Figure 6: Micks Garage Facebook Status 1 ................................................................... 24

Figure 7: Micks Garage Facebook Status 2 ................................................................... 24

Figure 8: Dromoland Castle Facebook Comment .......................................................... 25

Figure 9: McCormack's Pub Facebook Comment .......................................................... 27

Figure 10: Brubakers on Foursquare ............................................................................. 28

Figure 11: Witherspoons on Foursquare ....................................................................... 29

Figure 12: PeerIndex Screenshot .................................................................................. 32

Figure 13: Klout Influence Scores.................................................................................. 33

Figure 14: Klout Profile .................................................................................................. 33

Figure 15: Social Platforms & Popular Sites .................................................................. 45

Figure 16: Google Alerts ............................................................................................... 51

Figure 17: Tweetdeck Desktop App ............................................................................... 52

Figure 18: Facebook Search ......................................................................................... 52

Figure 19: Open Facebook Search ................................................................................ 53

Figure 20: Advanced Twitter Search ............................................................................. 54

Figure 21: Twitter Status Update ................................................................................... 54

Figure 22: SocialMention.com Screenshot .................................................................... 56

Figure 23: Trackur.com Screenshot .............................................................................. 57

Figure 24: CoTweet Screenshot .................................................................................... 58

Figure 25: Hootsuite Screenshot ................................................................................... 59

Figure 26: SugarCRM Screenshot ................................................................................. 61

Figure 27: Salesforce Screenshot ................................................................................. 62

Figure 28: Microsoft Dynamics Screenshot ................................................................... 63

Figure 29: SageCRM Screenshot .................................................................................. 64

Social CRM in Irish SMEs List of Figures

Chapter 1 - Introduction

1.1 Scope

Social CRM is first and foremost a business „strategy‟. Therefore throughout this

dissertation, I‟m approaching this from a strategic / management perspective.

Social CRM‟s definition is debatable, however the reason it‟s called „Social‟ CRM as

opposed to just „CRM‟ is because of the relatively recent surge of business activity

through social media. Businesses needed some kind of strategic approach to social

media in order to measure its value and so the term Social CRM was coined.

Social Media (which was the catalyst for the creation of the term „Social CRM‟) is the use

of web based & mobile technologies which allow us to communicate and engage in

conversion.

This dissertation will focus on trying to determine value of Social CRM to Irish SMEs

primarily through observational research but also through experiments and

conversations with an Irish SME.

1.2 Objectives

The objectives of this dissertation are;

To find out HOW Irish SMEs are using Social CRM.

To find out WHY Irish SMEs are / are not using Social CRM.

Review Social CRM tools and technologies that are available to Irish SMEs.

Explore the training options available in this area for SMEs.

Carry out a Facebook experiment to see social CRM in action.

Develop a best practices Social CRM strategy for Irish SMEs.

Case Study

Social CRM in Irish SMEs Chapter 1 - Introduction

1.3 Chapter Overview

Chapter 1 – Introduction

o Scope

o Objectives

Chapter 2 - What is Social CRM?

o Explanation of how the term came about

o Overview of why it‟s needed in business

Chapter 3 - Why is Social CRM important?

o Background on user / customer behaviour online

o Opportunities & Challenges for businesses with Social Media

Chapter 4 - How are Irish SMEs using Social CRM?

o Growth of Social CRM in Ireland over past 5 years

o Analysis of SME surveys

o Statistics on social media usage in Ireland

Chapter 5 - Social CRM tools & technologies

o Comparison and analysis of online monitoring tools

o Comparison and analysis of CRM software

Chapter 6 - Experiments

o Facebook Experiment

Chapter 7 - Best practices guide for creating a Social CRM Strategy.

o Analysis of reports / whitepapers on Social CRM

o Explore training options available

Chapter 8 – Case Study

o Apply findings from dissertation and outline implementation steps for a

real Irish business.

Chapter 9 – Conclusion

o Discussion of topics covered

Social CRM in Irish SMEs Chapter 1 - Introduction

Chapter 2 – What is Social CRM?

2.1 What is Social CRM?

Social CRM, according to The Gartner Research Group can be defined as;

“A business strategy that mutually benefits cloud-based communities and the business

by fostering engagement while generating opportunities for sales, marketing and

customer service.” [4]

The reality is Social CRM is a very new term and there is a lot of debate amongst

analysts as to what the definition of Social CRM is however all agree that social media is

changing the way business works and adding another dimension to traditional CRM.

Figure 2: Evolution of Social CRM by Chess Media Group

In the past, if businesses had a customer service facility, it involved the customer ringing

in at set times. There were no other options. Today, the business has to communicate in

the channels that customers want to communicate in i.e. social media. This is a big

cultural change for businesses and it‟s still a very new concept, hence the reason why a

lot of businesses are still unclear about Social CRM.

Social CRM in Irish SMEs Chapter 2 – What is Social CRM?

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Rather than look at Social CRM as another technical „buzz‟ term (like web 2.0 & web

3.0), it‟s less intimidating to think of Social CRM as an extension of traditional CRM. All

businesses should be familiar with the concept of CRM. Social CRM is CRM brought in

to the 21st century; the fusion of traditional CRM and the relatively new world of social

media.

Figure 3: Fusion of CRM & Social Media

2.1.1 What is CRM?

Before Social CRM can be explained, it‟s important the concept of CRM is understood.

CRM is a business strategy which helps a business build valuable, long term

relationships with existing and potential customers. The goal of CRM, ultimately, is to

yield results, preferably in the form of profit. In to achieve that, businesses need what is

called a 360 degree view of a customer i.e. as much information as possible about said

customer.

CRM is traditionally comprised of three main elements: sales, support & marketing. This

„loop‟ revolves around the customer and through customer feedback and continuous

refinement of sales, support and marketing processes, the business should benefit from

increased loyalty, reduced costs (in marketing) and ultimately more sales.


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Figure 4: Three elements of CRM

2.1.2 What is Social Media?

Social media is any online technology that allows people to share content, opinions,

perspectives, experiences & media.

2.1.3 What is an SME?

SMEs can be divided into three categories; micro (less than 10 employees), small (less

than 50 employees) and medium (less than 250 employees). I won‟t be focusing on a

specific category when referring to SMEs in this dissertation and to clarify I‟ll be focusing

on all businesses located in Ireland that have less than 250 employees as of January

2011.

2.1.4 Why only Irish SME's?

Dell attributed $6.5m in sales in 2009 to twitter. Whilst that shows businesses can make

money using twitter, Dell are a multinational in the technology industry and have the

resources and expertise to implement successful social customer relationship

management strategies.


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This example is used time and time again in relation to business on twitter and it‟s the

same on other social networking sites… in order to „sell‟ the concept of SCRM to

businesses, social media & PR companies tend to use extremely successful examples

like as case studies. The reality is not every company is a Dell. Twitter may not work for

all companies.

$6.5m in sales (or the equivalent in euro) is not realistic and not achievable for an

average Irish SME. It depends on products & services being offered, time available to

invest in social media, whether or not they have an overall social media strategy, clear

goals, understanding of how social media works, who their target market is etc...

The reason I‟m focusing on Social CRM in an Irish context and only within Irish SMEs is

because it helps narrow the scope of my research plus it ensures I must look beyond the

headline grabbing social media figures and statistics which tend to come from larger

multinationals - Dell‟s twitter sales being a perfect example.

2.2 Why is Social CRM the future of business?

Social media is changing the way business works. Traditionally, we, the customer,

bought products and services based on price, word of mouth recommendations and

advertisements. If we needed support, we rang helpdesks, sent letters or physically met

with employees. In the late 1990‟s and early 2000‟s, we started using email to

communicate with businesses along with friends and family.

Today, we‟re adopting a new communication medium faster than any other type of

communication technology in history. That communication medium is called social media

and it‟s rapidly changing the way the world communicates.

Well respect entrepreneur and marketing expert Seth Godin challenges as individuals

and businesses;

“How can you squander even one more day not taking advantage of the greatest shifts

of our generation? How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for

you to be remarkable”. [5]


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Is talking about social media as some sort of revolution a slight exaggeration? These

statistics on our usage of social media speak volumes;

Every minute of every day, we upload 24 hours of video to YouTube. [6]

Facebook has over 600m users worldwide with the average user spending 55

minutes per day on the site. [7]

Focusing specifically on Ireland, all the trends suggest social media is not only here to

stay, but its use is growing amongst consumers and businesses.

A report by The Irish Internet Association shows that digital advertising spend in 2010

increased by just over 12% to €53.9m at a time when general ad spend decreased by

5.1%. [8] Whilst the vast majority of that cash is spent on Google Adwords, in 2011

users will now spend more time on Facebook than Google [9] and digital marketing

research group „emarketer‟ predict that globally, ad spend on social media will increase

dramatically in 2011 [10], denting Google‟s formidable market share of online

advertising.

This pendulum swing in terms of where and how businesses are advertising online is

driven solely by the growth of social media. Social media is where the customer is in

2011 and this is why the need for a Social CRM strategy is greater than ever before.

There are various tools and technologies available (many for free) which allow

businesses to monitor what is being said about them. Some multinationals like Dell and

Gatorade (sports division of Pepsi) have invested in social media „command centers‟

[11] and employ people whose job it is specifically to monitor what is being said about

the company online and engage in conversation online on behalf of the company.

In Ireland, the reality is small businesses simply don‟t have the resources to set up social

media command centres however many are taking the time to interact with customers

online and are reaping the benefits. As more and more customers publish details about

their daily lives online, it's inevitable they'll talk more about businesses, products &

services. Businesses can't control that, but they can monitor it and interact with

customers to enhance the customer experience, gain trust and gain loyalty.


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In short, social media equals profit which is why it‟s being adopted by more and more

businesses around the world. It‟s my intention to demonstrate in this dissertation how

and why social CRM works for Irish SMEs but also to demonstrate how and why it

doesn‟t work for others.


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Chapter 3 - Why is Social CRM important?

3.1 The 1% theory

Before any attempt is made to value Social CRM in a business, it‟s important to

understand that all customers have their own network of connections. Information can be

spread in real time so whether it‟s negative or positive, there are plenty of eyeballs

reading it even if few interact with it.

In 2006, web usability expert Dr Jakob Nielsen came up with his '1% Theory'. This

theory suggests that user participation in conversation online can be divided in the ratio

of 90:9:1. [12] 90% of users simply 'lurk' in the background and read content, they don't

interact with it. 9% of users contribute and interact with content however they only do

this when it suits them or when they have nothing better to do. 1% of users participate a

lot in conversation online and account for the most content online. They are the driving

forces behind online communities as without this 1%, the 99% can't exist.

Figure 5: 1% Theory Diagram

This is known as „participation inequality‟ and although the web has changed

dramatically since this research was initially carried out, we can still see examples of

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participation inequality online today...

For example popular Irish forum boards.ie has 415,000 registered users who have

created over 23m forum posts. However, the top five contributors on boards.ie have

accounted for over 230,000 posts or almost 1% of the total content on boards.ie. So

these five users skew the statistics dramatically. The average user has contributed 55

posts, but these five individuals have contributed an average of 46,000 posts each!

In January 2010, it was revealed that 80% of twitter accounts were 'inactive' i.e. users

hadn't posted a 'tweet' in at least 1 month. [13] This is another great example of

participation inequality. Although 80% of accounts were inactive, twitter continued to

grow due to the fanatical use of the service by a small number of hugely influential users

(e.g. celebrities, football players, musicians).

So although the 1% theory is probably more like the 0.01% theory in 2011, the same

principles still apply. The bottom line is that a very small percentage of users create

content and the vast majority of users lurk or browse through content without ever

participating.

This is very important to keep in mind when conducting business online. It's the reason

why all customers must be treated equally and with respect. One carelessly worded or

rash response to a customer in public by a staff member and the chances are if that

customer doesn‟t react to it, somebody else lurking in the background will. That person

could be a journalist, a competitor or perhaps a potential customer.

3.2 Opportunities

Social CRM is all about the customer. Business in general is all about the customer.

Without customers, no business can survive so it makes sense to gather as much

information as you possibly can on customers and potential customers. If a customer

contacts a business through social media or makes it known to a business they have

some kind of presence online, it‟s in the businesses best interest to act on that

information and do some background research on the customer.


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For example on a personal Facebook account, users will typically list their date of birth

and home town. You can generally tell by a name whether the user is male or female.

Simply knowing sex, age and location allows a business to tailor their response to the

customer in order to maximize the chance of a sale.

The more information a business can find on a customer, the greater the chance of a

sale. Perhaps customers list sports or hobbies on their Facebook profile. Maybe they‟ve

recently commented on a controversial news item.

Businesses can use this knowledge to build rapport with a customer and start or engage

in conversation they know the customer will be interested in. This is much more useful

than small talk such as “It‟s a lovely day today”.

An Example

For example, let‟s say I‟m interested in buying a new car and I happen to come across a

local dealership on Facebook. I contact the dealer through Facebook asking if they have

a particular model of car in the showroom. They do, so I agree to go in at a later date.

Now let‟s look at this from the businesses point of view… they know that I‟m interested in

buying in a particular car so I‟ve immediately revealed that I‟m somewhat serious about

buying a car and therefore I must have some kind of financing in mind therefore I must

be able to afford the car.

Because I‟ve contacted them through Facebook, they should immediately look at my

profile and try to extract as much useful information as possible from it. Age, location,

employer… this is obvious information which most Facebook users will have filled out.

However a business shouldn‟t stop there. They should be looking for favourite hobbies,

sports, college education, schools attended, music, movies, relationship status…

anything they can use to bring up in conversation or help build rapport with me. Why

should a business do that? Simple. It increases the chances that I‟ll bond with the

salesperson and strike a deal.


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If I‟m interested in football, the salesperson could casually mention they support the

same club I support. If I‟ve listed Westlife as my favourite band, they could perhaps

„accidentally‟ have a Westlife album playing in the car. If I have kids, the salesperson

could mention how the boot is big enough for buggies & shopping or highlight some child

safety features.

All of this, whether I notice it or not, is helping me to visualize myself in the car with the

people I‟m normally with or listening to the music I normally listen to. So because the

sales pitch is all aimed at me and my likes, needs & wants and the salesperson appears

to have a lot in common with me, it‟s much more difficult for me to walk away. Even if I

do walk away in the end, I‟ll still leave with a very good impression of the dealership and

perhaps may go back in the future or recommend it to friends.

It‟s that attention to detail which can be the difference between a sale and a window

shopper and that‟s what Social CRM is all about. Understanding customers, trying to

figure out and anticipate what customers will buy, what they want, when they‟ll buy it

etc…

That‟s a real life example of how a business could use social media to its advantage and

why Social CRM is important, however there are several other advantages to using

Social CRM…

3.2.1 Crowd Sourcing

Crowd sourcing comes from the term open source. Open source software is software

developed by a community of people out of passion and generally is not for profit.

Crowd sourcing is simply utilising a community of people (a crowd) to complete tasks

that were once completed by an employee or outsourced. It differs from the idea of 'open

source' in that the task at hand is given to the general public as opposed to created by

the general public. Businesses can use crowd sourcing to help solve problems or assist

with innovation

A crowd sourcing community is typically comprised of volunteers with an interest in a

particular area.


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One good example of crowd sourcing in Ireland was "your country, your call". [14] This

competition involved getting people to submit ideas to revive the Irish economy. The

best ideas would be given funding and put in to action.

The response was beyond all expectations as people from all walks of life submitted

their business ideas. All ideas were open to the public to look at and comment / vote on,

so the community not only uploaded their ideas, but they also rated and debated the

problems and opportunities with all ideas.

. The benefits of crowd sourcing include;

free / cheap labour

range of talent

intellectual collaboration

increased loyalty / sense of ownership

Whether it‟s a competition on Facebook that gets users to design packaging, a

competition to create the best homemade video Ad on YouTube for a product, a free

giveaway to the user with the most entertaining forum post in any given month... these

are all ways businesses can get a community to create real value and „buzz‟ through

social media.

3.2.2 Improved Customer Support

The reason why many businesses choose to provide an online customer support forum

is because ultimately it saves the business time.

Customers are much more comfortable contacting their own peers rather than formally

contacting a business. A forum is free to use and convenient in that it‟s open at all times

of day.

Quite often, customers will have similar questions and problems and over time, if those

questions and problems are answered and debated in a forum which anyone can

access, then that means new customers can get the information they need from issues

which have been resolved in the past.


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It can be a forum, a series of video tutorials on YouTube, a dedicated twitter account for

support queries... the more a business documents problems and solutions with products

and services online, the easier it becomes for future customers to find solutions.

3.2.3 Lead Generation

Before Facebook and Twitter and any other social media website, people were still

sharing information with businesses, however they weren‟t sharing it with their friends.

An example of that would be a banner advertisement for a free holiday if a user entered

their email address. The business would then gather a list of email addresses and create

a mailing list.

Whilst mailing lists are still popular, social media offers businesses a much more

lucrative method of running competitions.

Whenever a user comments or „likes‟ something on Facebook, that activity is essentially

broadcast to all of that user‟s connections. Twitter works in a similar way whereby if a

user tweets something, all of that user‟s „followers‟ receive the message.

Many Irish businesses are taking advantage of this and running competitions safe in the

knowledge they can promote their brand and gain new leads simply by asking existing

customers to comment on their Facebook page.

Micksgarage.ie runs a competition every Friday on Facebook where their fans have the

opportunity to win special prizes (stock). In order to win the prize, these fans must

promote the competition to their friends. A typical example can be seen below...


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Figure 6: Micks Garage Facebook Status 1

On this particular occasion, they gained over 1000 fans in a week. That means 1000

new users visited their Facebook page, took the time to read about the competition and

in „liking‟ the page, they in turn helped to promote micksgarage.ie.

Figure 7: Micks Garage Facebook Status 2

Those 1000+ new potential customers cost just €130 worth of stock. This is much more

powerful than a mailing list because a business can only „reach‟ so far i.e. to its existing

customers and all interested parties. By using social media, that „reach‟ is in theory

never ending. Customers promote the business to their friends who in turn promote it to

their friends...

3.2.4 Feedback

Much like lead generation, feedback through social media is a very public affair. If a

customer doesn‟t like your product or service and voices their opinion, that opinion is

seen by all of his / her friends, plus it can be seen by anyone who accesses the

businesses social media profile.

That can be extremely damaging and difficult to manage for a business. It‟s the

equivalent of dealing with an irate customer in a busy shop. How a business conducts


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itself on these occasions is equally as important as reaching a satisfactory outcome

because although it‟s only a single customer complaining, there could be many watching

or listening in the background and quietly forming their own opinions.

This is why staff that has access to a business social media account must be properly

trained and fully aware of their responsibilities and the fact they represent the business

at all times.

However feedback through social media isn‟t always negative. When customers leave

positive feedback, again all of their friends will be alerted and all users browsing the

businesses account will see it.

One such example would be that of Dromoland Castle Country Club, a Hotel in Co

Clare. Occasionally, guests will post comments about their stay on the Hotel‟s Facebook

page.

Figure 8: Dromoland Castle Facebook Comment

This is of course the kind of feedback all businesses want. Dromoland Castle also took

the time to reply to this users comment, address them personally and that only serves to

enhance this customer‟s experience of Dromoland Castle and its staff.

3.2.5 Collaboration / Innovation

A social media presence is almost like a free focus group for a business. Customers and

potential customers across all demographics typically „follow‟ businesses on Twitter or

„like‟ businesses on Facebook. Business to business relationships can be harnessed

through LinkedIn.


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If a business has all of these connections, it makes sense to utilize them and encourage

feedback and input from as many people as possible. Customers see things differently

to a business, as do suppliers and partners. Quite often it‟s those unbiased, neutral

people who can provide the most valuable feedback.

Several large multinationals like Dell [15] and Starbucks [16] put a lot of emphasis on

idea generation and feedback. They provide customers with a dedicated web service

where they seek new ideas or possible improvements from customers.

These feedback websites have grown in to communities themselves where the

community of customers rate their favourite ideas, meaning the community not only

generates ideas and feedback for a business, but it manages and filters the ideas based

on a democratic voting system.

Those are extreme examples of how social media can be used to assist innovation and

collaboration but smaller businesses can also benefit.

In the example below, McCormack‟s Pub in Naas asks for feedback on a soon to be

launched cocktail menu...


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Figure 9: McCormack's Pub Facebook Comment

In this example, on the surface it appears the business is looking for feedback however

there are numerous other benefits to asking for feedback in public, through social media.

They don‟t have enough Facebook fans to generate much feedback however simply by

asking for feedback, they give customers the opportunity to speak and be heard and that

gesture alone strengthens loyalty between customer and business.

The volume or quality of feedback in this case almost seems trivial however over 500

Facebook users would have seen this status update and of the five users that

commented, all of their friends would have been alerted that they‟d commented on

McCormack‟s Pub Facebook page.

3.2.6 Mobile / Geolocation

A survey carried out in late 2010 showed that 46% of Irish people use the internet on

their mobile phone. [17] Almost half of the 1007 respondents had a „smartphone‟ but

many admitted they didn‟t use all of its features. Of the most used smart phone features

(on a daily basis), 46% said „search‟ was top of their usage list. Email and social

networking came a close joint second on 39%.


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Mobile Geo location services are the latest trend in social media.

Foursquare, founded in 2009, is currently the largest dedicated location based social

network in the world with almost 7 million users globally, growing at a rate of 1m users

per month. Foursquare don‟t release country specific statistics but we know that

approximately 40% of its user base is outside of the US. [18]

Some estimates suggest the number of Irish users stands at less than 5,000 [19]

however due to the rapid growth of Foursquare over recent months (last quarter 2010), I

would guesstimate there are about 10,000 foursquare members with Ireland listed as

their location.

Businesses can use Foursquare to reward loyal customers by creating what are known

as „specials‟. Customers can „check in‟ to a business premises and receive exclusive

discounts or prizes for checking in to that venue on multiple occasions. An example of

an Irish business using this would be Brubakers pub in Dundalk.

Figure 10: Brubakers on Foursquare

For every 10 check-ins any user makes, users get a free drink. This encourages users to

check in more often, and increases loyalty as the customer knows they‟ll get a free drink

if they keep coming back. Brubakers can also monitor the times users have checked in

and how often they‟ve checked in.


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Another creative way of enticing customers to „check in‟ to your business on foursquare

is to offer the mayor (the person who checks in the most often in the past 60 days) a

discount on your products or services. Witherspoon‟s Bar & Restaurant in Enniskillen,

Co Fermanagh do this.

Figure 11: Witherspoons on Foursquare

It‟s the 21st century version of the loyalty card. The beauty of foursquare from a

business‟ perspective, is that‟s it‟s free to use.

However the number of Irish users, as has been highlighted earlier, is extremely small.

That said, because it‟s free to use and growing rapidly, it shouldn‟t be ignored.

Particularly with businesses who get a lot of people through their doors.

On February 4th 2011, Facebook Places launched in Ireland. [20] This is Facebook‟s

answer to Foursquare and a „hat tip‟ to the mobile / geo location services industry. With

over 1.8m Facebook users in Ireland and a significant number of them using

smartphones, this offers businesses a great opportunity to engage with new customers.


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At a recent football match, I noted that 0.03% of the match attendance had used either

Foursquare or Facebook Places to check in to the stadium.

On Foursquare, 26 people checked in to the Aviva Stadium, whilst 42 had checked in on

Facebook Places.

Facebook Places had been launched in Ireland less than a week earlier yet based on

this small experiment it almost 60% more users than Foursquare (which has been live in

Ireland for almost 2 years).

Whilst the research and stats in this area can misleading (because usage is growing so

rapidly), there is no doubt that services like Foursquare and Facebook Places will

become more mainstream. They‟ll also become a form of Social CRM for businesses

because businesses can monitor, log and interact with customers who use these

services.

3.2.7 Influence Mining

Just like in group conversation in real life, certain people are more influential than others

online. When you meet a new person or a customer face to face in the real world, they

are unknown. You can only judge them base on appearance, body language, voice

etc… online, it‟s much easier to gather information on customers through their presence

on social media websites (assuming of course they have one).

Depending on how private this person is, you may be able to find out where they work,

where they live, who their friends are etc… although all customers are valuable in

theory, the reality is some have more power and influence than others online. Those

people are the ones who can drive positive or negative publicity in an instant, with a

simple tweet or a status update.

Influence mining tools are in their infancy as this is an area of Social CRM which is not

fully understood and extremely difficult to measure as it would be wrong to simply base

influence on the number of friends a person has.


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Influence according to analytics expert, Dr Michael Wu [21], involves two entities; the

influencer and the target.

In order for the influencer to influence the target, they require (a) expertise (b) a method

of transmitting their knowledge.

The target‟s likelihood of being influenced depends on four things;

Relevance – the target must need the information the influencer is providing

Timing – the target only needs information at a specific time, therefore the

influencer must provide it at the right time

Alignment – in order for the target to „hear‟ the influencer, they must both be

communicating on the same channel i.e. if one is only on Facebook and the other

is only Twitter, neither will know about each other.

Confidence – the influencer must have the confidence of the target in order to

establish trust.

In simple terms, influence is not easily measured, especially in social media. It‟s almost

impossible to automate whilst providing accurate results as one businesses definition of

influence could change from another‟s.

That said, there are „influence mining‟ tools which help to measure a user‟s influence on

social media websites. These can provide valuable insight in to how influential a

customer may be. It may be in a business‟ best interest to pay extra attention to these

users, particularly when dealing with complaints.

PeerIndex.net

PeerIndex use publicly available data from twitter.com to calculate a user‟s authority and

activity on a specific subject area. In the example below we can see Irish wine business

„Curious Wines‟ tweet about primarily leisure and lifestyle activities on their twitter

account. They have an overall PeerIndex of 32. A ranking of 40+ means a profile is in

the top 10% of the community.


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Figure 12: PeerIndex Screenshot

Klout.com

Klout combines data from facebook and twitter to measure a user‟s influence. It also

allows users to search for influencers in any given area.

For example, if I search for „wine‟, I‟m presented with a list of twitter users who klout

deems to be hugely influential in the „wine‟ space.


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Figure 13: Klout Influence Scores

If I click on any of those users, I can see a summary of „achievements‟ for that user

such as the number of „retweets‟ that person has received and the number of unique

twitter users who have responded to that person.

Figure 14: Klout Profile


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This data shows in an instant how „influential‟ a user can be, so if I own a wine business,

these are the type of people I want talking about my business or reviewing my business.


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3.3 Drawbacks

The benefits of social media are well known, hence the rapid growth in social media

usage and Social CRM by Irish businesses over the last 5 years.

There are however several disadvantages or potential disadvantages when it comes to

social media for businesses.

3.3.1 Staff Not Trained

A Ryanair employee famously responded to Irish blogger „Jason Roe‟ in 2008 when he

published a blog post revealing a small bug in the Ryanair website. A Ryanair employee

posted a comment stating Jason was „an idiot and a liar' and went on to say that all

bloggers were 'lunatics' and 'idiots'. [22]

That outburst was enough to generate a huge amount of negative publicity for Ryanair

and quickly found its way on to mainstream news channels and newspapers, forcing

Ryanair to issue an apology. This demonstrates how dangerous a loosely worded public

response from an employee can prove to be but it also demonstrates the power of social

media and how quickly stories can spread and make national news. Business must be

aware of this before they engage in conversation with customers online. This is one

reason why not just any employee should be allowed represent the business online.

Ideally they should be trained in PR & customer service and understand the implications

their actions (no matter how trivial) can have on the business.

More recently, a 19 year old photographer working for „The County Down Outlook‟ (a

local weekly paper) commented on her personal Facebook profile that she was “sick of

hearing” about the death of Michaela McAreavey and claimed “what goes around comes

around”. [23]

Despite the fact these comments were made on her personal Facebook profile, they

were leaked by friends and were picked up by the media through social media, sparking

international outrage (fuelled by Facebook & twitter users) and forcing the young

woman‟s employers to dismiss her. Threats to her own safety forced her to leave the

country. [24]


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This is another example of how social media can do serious damage both to a business

and to individuals. Despite being only 19 years of age, this young woman will forever be

associated with those comments and she‟ll be known to prospective employers for all

the wrong reasons. Despite removing all the offending material within hours of it being

published in the media, the damage had already been done.

3.3.2 Time Consuming

In a recent survey carried out by Marketing Institute of Ireland in attitudes towards social

media, it was found that 64% of Irish business agrees social media increases their

workload [25]. Whether or not business have the time and resources to invest in social

media will depend on how much value they place in it, just like any other method of

communication.

If a business advertises on radio, only with hindsight can they accurately measure the

value of those radio ads. Based on the statistics at hand, they will then continue or

discontinue radio ads.

Social media is generally free to use, however the time needed to respond to customers

and manage profiles across many websites can quickly become an issue if there are no

members of staff whose job it is to specifically look after the businesses social media

presence.

3.3.3 Lack of Control

Any cloud based service brings with it potential security and privacy issues. The main

reason for that is because data is stored on external servers which a business doesn‟t

own. With social media, it‟s a similar situation. All communication carried out via social

media on websites like Facebook and Twitter isn‟t property of a business, its property of

Facebook and Twitter or more accurately, it‟s property of everyone involved in the

communication.

Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook founder), has stated that when a person shares information

on Facebook, they first need to “grant Facebook a license” to use that information [26].

That license is granted by signing up and agreeing to their ever changing terms and

conditions.


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It‟s lack of control like this which businesses fear. What happens if our account gets

deleted? What happens if our account gets hacked? Can we sue individual users or sue

Facebook for defamation? These are questions with no simple answers and in most

cases, it‟s up to Facebook how to answer them, a business surrenders a lot of its control

once it signs up and starts using Facebook services.

3.3.4 Measuring ROI

It‟s difficult to measure ROI in social media because social media isn‟t the same thing as

sales. In order to calculate the ROI of anything, we need to use the following formula;

Payback – Investment * 100

Investment

Payback or „sales‟ is extremely difficult to calculate in this case because social media

isn‟t „sales‟. It‟s a more „marketing‟ (although it could be argued it‟s a form of customer

service or perhaps even PR). Because the definition of social media isn‟t clear and

because it can‟t be boxed in to marketing, sales or IT departments, businesses struggle

to accurately measure ROI and many don‟t even attempt to measure it. A survey carried

out by social software company mzinga.com in August 2009 found that 84% of

businesses worldwide don‟t measure ROI of social media programs. [27]

However, because it‟s difficult to measure social media ROI doesn‟t mean it can‟t be

measured or shouldn‟t be measured. No business should invest in social media just

because everyone else is doing it, they must understand why they‟re spending money

on it or allocating resources to it i.e. they must be able to justify their social media

strategy.

All businesses investing in social media should at least try to calculate ROI in order to

determine whether it has any impact at all on their business.

Going back to our ROI formula earlier, we need to define „investment‟. Whilst Facebook

and Twitter and many social websites and services are free to use, it would be naive to

think that they don‟t „cost‟ businesses.


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Social media takes time, it takes people and it takes technology. Those resources are

not „free‟. Businesses can (or should) already be able to put a price on their people, time

and technology.

Before we can begin to monitor or calculate social media‟s ROI, we need to establish a

baseline i.e. what things where like before social media. For example if sales revenue

was €100,000 in 2009 and €200,000 in 2010, then we can begin to question where the

difference has come from and whether or not it can be attributed to social media.

In order to help answer these questions we need to refer to activity timelines i.e. what we

did with social media every week from 2009 to 2010. Maybe we had a competition in

week 1, a video upload on week 4, blog post in week 6 etc…

Only then can we begin to associate social media activity with sales activity or numbers

of new customers in a certain week or month.

In summary, in order to calculate social media ROI, business need to;

Establish a baseline (before social media, after social media)

Create activity timelines (document social media activity)

Analyze sales statistics (new customers, revenue, best / worst sales months)

Look for patterns (compare to previous years, compare to social media activity

timelines)

Read between lines (if sales for an item jumped 200% after we published a blog

post about it, we must be able to attribute that to social media.)


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Chapter 4 - Social CRM in Ireland

4.1 The growth of CRM and Social CRM in Ireland from 2005 - present

In February 2006, Microsoft Ireland published a report on CRM in Ireland [47]. In that

report, they surveyed Irish businesses and interviewed several companies who had

successfully used CRM to grow their business.

One of the people interviewed was Sean Fitzpatrick, the then head of Irish Anglo Bank.

He was asked a series of questions in relation to CRM such as whether or not being in

tune with customer needs was a significant competitive advantage.

Sean Fitzpatrick responded by saying Anglo Irish Bank had a hard time breaking in to

the market as a small bank and that “the only thing we could change was the way we

worked with the customers”. He went on to say that “We developed an attitude that the

customer is king and that we needed them more than they needed us”.

Whilst his business and his own personal credibility have since been damaged beyond

repair, ranking the customer as „King‟ should be the goal of all CRM strategies and it

worked for Anglo Irish Bank. Their CRM strategy worked and their understanding that

the customer was king worked in that it got them more business and helped them gain

trust and loyalty. The rest of their business practices however weren‟t so successful and

within a short space of time, their reputation was destroyed. This serves as a good

example of how a great CRM strategy means nothing if all other elements of the

business are not sound.

In that same report, Microsoft surveyed over 800 Irish businesses and the main findings

were as follows;

52% of business had no CRM systems in place

Most respondents thought of CRM as a technology, not as a frame of mind or

business practice.

Many respondents reduced CRM to a single element of the system such as

contact management or marketing campaigns.

Social CRM in Irish SMEs Chapter 4 – Social CRM in Ireland?

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Microsoft concluded that “a clear majority of companies have no idea where their

business comes from and who their best customers are” and they also said that senior

executives lacked the information they need to enable effective decision making.

Whilst that report conveniently coincided with the launch of Microsoft‟s own CRM

software, it highlighted how little businesses understood about CRM, never mind Social

CRM which is a relatively new phenomenon and was only in its infancy back in 2005

when this report was published.

Very recently (January 2011), Microsoft published a similar report detailing the state of

CRM in Irish businesses in 2011. [47] Again this report is published at a time when

Microsoft have conveniently launched an online CRM tool for businesses but looking

beyond the sales pitch, the findings of the latest survey are again interesting and

relevant as 7 out of the 10 businesses Microsoft surveyed were SMEs.

23% of the 400 respondents when asked the question “In the past five years, what is the

main change you‟ve seen in the way you deal with customers?” responded that

customers now expect a quicker response.

Whilst Microsoft don‟t specifically mention SCRM in their report, statistics like these

show how much CRM has changed in recent years and that „Social‟ is now a big part of

CRM. It‟s changing the way businesses communicate with not just customers but

suppliers, competitors etc...

Remarkably, 24.7% of respondents use Microsoft Excel as their CRM product or system

as opposed to dedicated CRM software. That is the most popular CRM tool, eclipsing

even dedicated CRM tools like Microsoft‟s own „Dynamics CRM‟ or another popular

CRM tool called „Salesforce‟. Over the past five years, 80% of respondents have

invested in a CRM system, again highlighting how attitudes have changed over the past

5 years.

On the subject of social media, 27% had no plans to use social media, whilst the rest

either used social media or intended to. In terms of popularity, Facebook weighed in as

the no.1 most used social media site with 31% of businesses using it to communicate


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with customers. 23% use twitter to interact with customers and 26% use the professional

network „LinkedIn‟ to talk to customers and build relationships.

Considering twitter didn‟t even exist five years ago, those statistics show how quickly

businesses have adapted and are adapting to social media. Many realise that they must

adapt in order to engage with customers and particularly younger generations who are

now growing up with social media. Businesses today might be able to survive without

social media or Social CRM. All that statistics and trends are suggesting that businesses

tomorrow won‟t.

4.2 Irish SMEs using social media

According to a survey of over 800 Irish SMEs across all industries by ISME (independent

organisation), 83% of Irish SMEs have a website [28]. The 17% without a website said

that costs and lack of in house technical knowledge were the biggest concerns.

The average cost to set up a business website was €4000, with €900 per year in

maintenance costs. 39% of those that use the internet said that the internet helped to

reduce their business costs.

Of those surveyed, 26% said they had a business social networking presence with 88%

of those claiming to have Facebook accounts.

Analysing those statistics, it's clear Irish SMEs understand the importance of having an

online presence as the vast majority (83%) have a website. They're prepared to invest in

it and many recognise that ultimately it helps to reduce costs or increase sales.

However when it comes to social media, just over 1 in 4 (26%) indicated they had any

kind of social media presence. So it's clear that Irish SMEs don't feel social media is as

important or as useful to their business as a website.

Of those that don't have any kind of website, they claim that costs are off putting. It's not

hard to see why when the average cost of building a website is €4,000 with annual fees

on top of that. For many smaller SMEs without any technical experience or interest, they

simply can't justify those costs and may struggle to justify having a website.


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In relation to social media, there are no costs to entry. Setting up a facebook account or

a twitter account is as simple as setting up an email account. Anyone with basic

computer skills and who is familiar with email and web browsing will be able to create a

facebook account.

It would be naive however to think that social media (in relation to a business) and

particularly Social CRM is cost free for everyone.

Whilst setting up and managing social media accounts is not beyond anyone with basic

IT skills, there are plenty of examples of why that shouldn't be done and why, in some

cases, that can have devastating consequences for a business.

The reality is not all staff can deal professionally with customers or other businesses in

public.


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4.3 Different Types of Social Media

Social Media according to Social Interactions expert Michael Wu Ph.D. can be divided in

to two categories [29].

social networks

social communities

Social Networks

The word „network‟ suggests a connection between two or more individuals. Wu says

that everyone has a social network, be it online or offline. A social network may consist

of family, friends, classmates, work colleagues etc... In other words, a social network is

comprised of people with established relationships.

Examples of popular online social networks in Ireland include;

Facebook

LinkedIn

Bebo

Social Communities

A community, by definition is a group of people who share a common interest in

something. Relationships within communities aren‟t as personal and as close as those

within social networks however that‟s not to say they can‟t become personal and close

over time.

Wu acknowledges the fact that social communities and networks can overlap and are

often nested within each other. One person can be a member of many communities but

they can‟t be a member of many social networks. A person only has one social network.

Examples of popular social communities in Ireland include;

YouTube

Twitter

Tripadvisor

Flickr

Boards.ie


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Communities can also develop through social networks. For example I may mention I

like Fishing to a friend who in turn puts me in contact with his friend who likes fishing and

so on. From there a community develops and possibly members of that community

become members of my social network.

It‟s important to understand the difference between a social network and social

community for a business. Even though they do overlap, both must be approached

differently. In general, a social networking website tends to be much more informal than

a community because relationships are stronger between people.

In a community, the emphasis is on the common interest, not individuals. Only through

showing that you care about the common interest will you earn the respect and trust of

other community members.

An example would be Facebook compared to Boards.ie. A business may have

Facebook page where they talk with customers and promote offers they may have.

That‟s acceptable because the business „owns‟ that page and in order to communicate

with the business, customers must „like‟ that page and in doing so they essentially „opt

in‟ to receive updates from that Business. Communities are generally not a place for self

promotion. The focus has to be on providing value to the community which online,

usually means helping people solve problems.

On boards.ie, if a business was to promote offers they have, that would be met with

hostility by members unless that offer is relevant to the conversation and adds value to

the community.

However, if a business were to respond to complaints on boards.ie, that would be

acceptable because the business is trying to help members of the community solve

problems.


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4.4 Irish Social Media Statistics

Figure 15: Social Platforms & Popular Sites

Facebook

There are 1,858,180 registered Facebook users in Ireland according to Facebook

statistics site „socialbakers.com‟ (as of 23rd March 2011). The Irish population is

4,450,446 which means almost 39% of people have a Facebook account.

54% of those are females, 46% male.

37% are aged 25-34 (single largest age category)

Almost 10% are over the age of 45.


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Twitter

Twitter do not disclose statistics on a per country basis so it‟s impossible to determine

accurate numbers but research carried out in August 2010 (but based on February 2010

statistics) put the number of Irish users on twitter at about 100,000. [30]

Based on my own research, I would say that figure is now closer to 200,000 and here‟s

why;

Google‟s Ad Planner [31] is a tool which gives accurate, but estimated traffic statistics on

all sites based on sample data from Google products and services along with opt-in

statistics sharing from some publishers.

At the time of writing, Facebook has 1.8m Irish users. Those statistics are available from

Facebook. Google‟s Ad Planner says Facebook has 1.6 m unique visitors per month in

Ireland which would suggest about 88% of Irish Facebook accounts are „active‟ (have

been accessed in the last month). According to Facebook‟s Head of US relations, 70%

of Facebook accounts in the US are accessed daily and 68% of UK accounts are also

accessed daily, so it‟s reasonable to assume 88% of Irish accounts would be accessed

in a month. [32]

The Ad Planner says twitter has 200,000 unique visitors per month and recent research

from Ipsos-MRBI suggests 7% of the population use twitter [33], so I‟m concluding that

twitter has 200,000 Irish users. Quite possibly slightly above it because twitter.com (the

website) is in fact rarely used by regular twitter users. Regular users of twitter typically

use desktop or mobile applications to access the site and these statistics aren‟t taken in

to account in Google‟s Ad Planner.


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YouTube

YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world behind Google. According to

Google‟s Ad planner, it has 1.2m unique visitors per month with those users spending an

average of 25 minutes on the site per visit. Whilst many businesses focus on search

engine optimisation of their website and try to compete for competitive keywords, many

don‟t realise that it‟s easier and perhaps more beneficial to focus on creating videos and

optimising those videos to appear for keyword searches on YouTube.

LinkedIn

According to Irish market recent agency Ipsos-MRBI, the number of Irish LinkedIn

accounts has grown from 4% of the population in August 2010 to 9% of the population in

February 2011 [34].

The central statistics office says the population of Ireland in 2010 was 4,470,700 [35]

which means the number of Irish LinkedIn accounts has risen from about 178,000 to

402,000 in less than 8 months. This rapid growth typifies how quickly the social media

landscape can change and how flexible a business must be in its social media strategy.

Five years ago, Irish businesses would have been targeting bebo but today it‟s

Facebook, Twitter and now LinkedIn.

4.5 Training / Consultants

There are an increasing number of social media consultants and companies setting up in

Ireland who provide training services in social media and online PR / marketing.

SimplyZesty

SimplyZesty is an online PR and social media agency with offices in Dublin. They run

regular social media training days and also provide onsite training, tailored to individual

businesses.

Their most recent training event (at the time of writing) was a Facebook Marketing

training day which cost €300 per person. [36]


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SimplyZesty also specialise in video production and social media campaign

management and have worked with clients like Vodafone, Nokia and Sony. They

regularly publish social media related news on their popular blog.

Mulley Communications

Damien Mulley is arguably the most popular blogger in Ireland and runs the Irish Web

Awards amongst other networking events. His company provides training and

consultancy in social media, online PR and business blogging and often conducts

research in those areas such as a Facebook Survey in which participant‟s eye

movements were observed and used to create a „heatmap‟ of the most popular areas on

a facebook page. [37]

At the time of writing, Mulley Communications offer several courses in social media

based training. One such event on May 16th and May 17th (2011) costs €170 for one day

or €300 for both days. The schedule of events is as follows;

Day 1: (May 16th) Social Media Overview

Overview of current social media trends

Search Optimisation and Website Structure

Facebook for Business

Twitter

LinkedIn

Day 2: (May 17th) Advanced Social Media

Blogging and Content Creation

Advanced Facebook – Facebook Pages customization

Facebook Places

Devising a Marketing Plan

Krishna De

Krishna De is a digital marketing, brand engagement and social media speaker and

mentor and author of several social media related books. Her social media agency „Biz


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Growth Media‟ provide training and consultancy services and Krishna is also a lecture at

the Irish Digital Marketing Institute.

Along with providing a wealth of free material on her personal blog and business blog,

Krishna also runs free webinars on social media related topics (Primarily LinkedIn,

Facebook) For example she is holding a webinar titled „7 Keys To Using LinkedIn To

Boost Your Online Visibility And Generate Leads‟ on March 31st 2011.

According to her company website [38], you can have access to Krishna, her resources

and her network for the day at a cost of €2,000 + VAT and travel expenses.


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Chapter 5 – Tools & Software

5.1 Online Monitoring Tools

Monitoring social media allows a business to constantly and immediately discover

relevant conversations. Many businesses use monitoring tools to search for their

business name with a view to engaging in conversation with customers or protecting

their brand.

Monitoring social media answers questions like "Who is talking about our business and

what are they saying?". However businesses can monitor any keywords or phrases they

want. If I own a small chocolate business, I can search for phrases like 'need chocolate'

or 'want chocolate'.

If possible I‟d also want to restrict results to Irish results only. That would help me

identify people using social media who need or want chocolate. I can then communicate

with them and try to get them to visit my website or satisfy their needs and wants.

Whilst there is a constant stream of new social media monitoring tools being launched to

cater for growing demand from businesses, there are some well respected free tools

which provide just as much value as some of their newer, more expensive rivals and this

dissertation will focus primarily on those tools.

5.1.1 Google Alerts

Google Alerts is one of the simplest but most effective online monitoring tools. Google

alerts provide free email updates containing the latest Google results for your chosen

keyword or phrase.

You can choose to have Google alerts email you daily, weekly or instantly any time a

new result is found for your query.

Social CRM in Irish SMEs Chapter 5 – Tools & Software

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Figure 16: Google Alerts

5.1.2 Tweetdeck

Tweetdeck is a free, real time desktop application that captures information from popular

social media websites and displays it in a series of columns.

Tweetdeck was originally created as a desktop application for the micro blogging site

twitter but it now aggregates data from other large social media sites like Facebook,

LinkedIn, MySpace, Google buzz and foursquare. It allows users to quickly and easily

view messages, respond to them and monitor keywords and trends.

One of the major problems users and businesses face with social media is filtering

information. It's easy to become overwhelmed when you have thousands of friends /

fans /followers posting information in real time. Tweetdeck helps organise that

information and can be heavily customised and configured to display data which

individual users want.

More recently, Tweetdeck launched a chrome web store application which now means

Tweetdeck can be used in the cloud, with the Google Chrome browser. There are also

several mobile apps available for Tweetdeck, all of which import and synchronise your

Tweetdeck settings.


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Figure 17: Tweetdeck Desktop App

5.1.3 Facebook Search

In order to search Facebook for keywords you must be logged in as a user. Once logged

in, you can search for people, events, groups, pages or posts by everyone. Generally for

a business, „posts by everyone‟ provides the most valuable information as that provides

real time updates on what people are saying about your brand or your product / services.

Figure 18: Facebook Search

However there are a small number of sites which take advantage of Facebook API‟s and

provide Facebook search features without the need to login to the network.


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Once such site is openfacebooksearch.com and it allows users to enter a search term

and get results from Facebook‟s „Posts by Everyone‟ instantly.

Figure 19: Open Facebook Search

5.1.4 Twitter Search

Originally, twitter was never considered to be a search engine by users or by twitter

themselves, but that‟s what it has become today. It was becoming such a threat to

Google‟s search monopoly that Google launched their Real-Time web search in July

2009, inspired (or forced to keep up) by Twitter [39]. So Google „real time‟ does provide

twitter search results however they‟re also integrated with Facebook results and others.

The best way to search Twitter is to use twitters „advanced‟ search feature. [40] From

here, you can filter results by location, attitude (positive or negative), date etc...


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Figure 20: Advanced Twitter Search

For a small Irish SME targeting new leads in Ireland, it makes sense to filter results to

Ireland only, unless of course that SME can provide services further afield.

Let‟s say I own a travel agency. I can do an advanced twitter search for the word

„Holiday‟ and limit the location of results to within 50 miles of Dublin. Here‟s just one

result I see which in my eyes is a potential customer.

Figure 21: Twitter Status Update

That person states that they want a holiday. Holidays are my business. This person is

Irish and they‟re based in Dublin so all I have to do now is follow up with some friendly

conversation and perhaps some of my best offers.


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Finding that potential lead took me about ten seconds and this person is just one of

many who are looking for holidays or want holidays. Of course not everyone genuinely

wants a holiday and this may just be wishful thinking or simply voicing frustration after a

busy day but because this is cheaper than sending out flyers or buying ads on the radio

etc... It can be done when no customers are in the shop or when any staff member finds

themselves with some free time.

5.1.5 Social Mention

Social Mention is a free, real time social media search engine which allows users to

search for keywords and phrases on specific social media websites.

Social Mention also allows users to create free daily email alerts similar to Google Alerts.

It allows a business to easily monitor what is being said and who is saying it.

It also tries to calculate sentiment (i.e. whether a message is positive or negative in tone)

which can be used by a business to quickly gauge a reaction after a new product launch

for example.

These results can be exported as CSV file so a business can dissect the statistics

further themselves or import them in to Social CRM software.


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Figure 22: SocialMention.com Screenshot

5.1.6 Trackur

Trackur is a social media monitoring tool / search engine which offers both free and paid

services. When keywords are entered in to the search box, trackur gathers statistics

from social media websites about that keyword. It generates a graph of how often that

keyword has been used over time, and displays a list of results which are sortable by

influence, sentiment and can be filtered to specific dates.

It also offers users the chance to „save‟ searches and get alerts every 30 minutes of any

new mentions for your saved keywords it discovers. The free version only allows you to

save one search, but paid plans (ranging from $18 - $377 / month) allow you to save

multiple keywords. Paid plans also differ from the free plan in that they search Facebook

and forums.


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Figure 23: Trackur.com Screenshot

5.1.7 Cotweet

Cotweet is a web based application which allows a team of people to manage one or

more twitter and facebook accounts. It allows users to schedule twitter updates which is

unique and depending on the business could prove to be very valuable. For example if

an Irish SME is trying to connect with the US market, their target market in the US may

not be online until 7pm in the evening. That would be midnight here when staff are

tucked up in their beds. The ability to schedule twitter updates could mean more people

see tweets or more people respond to them.

Cotweet allows a business to ad a signature to every tweet which is useful if multiple

people are managing the one twitter account. For example if three staff members all

update the company‟s twitter account, each of them could add their own signature to

every tweet they make (typically done with an „@‟ symbol followed by a username, or a

person‟s initials).

Tweets can also be „assigned‟ to certain people rather like helpdesk functionality. If there

is a question about sales, I can assign that tweet to a salesperson who in turn is

responsible for responding to it.


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The standard version of cotweet is free and there is an enterprise edition which includes

Facebook account management and unlimited users / staff members.

Figure 24: CoTweet Screenshot

5.1.8 Hootsuite

Hootsuite is yet another web based social media dashboard which helps manage your

Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts amongst others. It differs from the rest in that it

offers tabbed interface. Twitter updates are in one tab, Facebook updates are in another

etc...

Like Cotweet, Hootsuite allows scheduled updates and for tasks to be assigned to

specific individuals which makes it easy for multiple people to manage one account.

Hootsuite also allows users to upload files (for example pictures) which are uploaded to

partner services and return auto-shortened urls for users to easily share on social media

sites.


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There is a standard version which is free and a pro version which costs $5.99/month.

For large enterprises, the price goes up to $1499/month which includes training and

advanced analytics.

Figure 25: Hootsuite Screenshot

5.2 CRM Software

CRM or Social CRM isn‟t just software and services; it‟s a culture within a business

which primarily involves generating and retaining customers.

Software allows a business to automate that process by gathering intelligence on

customers and enables a business to monitoring trends, leading to better, more informed

decision making. According to computerweekly.com, good CRM software can increase

sales by up to 40-50%. [41]


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In order to choose the right software, a business must first outline its goals and

objectives and ideally come up with criteria to evaluate software by means of a weighted

scoring model.

Only after doing that, can a business start to compare and contrast CRM software and

pick a solution which can help a business achieve its objectives.

Some general criteria which may be important to a business are;

Support

Training

Cost

Design / Usability

Scalability

Reporting Capabilities

Integration with existing systems

Security

Essential „social‟ criteria in CRM software should include;

Brand monitoring

Ability to add multiple social media platforms

Social CRM analytics

5.2.1 Sugar CRM

Sugar CRM (Community Edition) is open source which means it‟s free to use and

continuously updated by a community of 25,000 developers. That edition provides basic

lead, sales and management tools.

Sugar CRM „Professional Edition‟ provides all the features of the community edition plus

forecasts, reporting and dashboards. It costs $360 per user / per year.

Sugar CRM „Enterprise Edition‟ costs $600 per user / per year and provides a customer

self service facility like a knowledgebase and ticket system where users can create

cases and upload relevant material.


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Figure 26: SugarCRM Screenshot

5.2.2 Salesforce

Salesforce provide a wide range of CRM solutions and packages. Their CRM

applications are used by several large multinational companies like Google and

Starbucks.

Apart from ongoing development by Salesforce themselves, Salesforce applications can

be extended through the use of „AppExchange‟ which is essentially a collection of third

party plugins created by independent developers.

Salesforce offer Social CRM features in the form of their „Service Cloud 2‟ package

which aggregates data from Google, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

This effectively allows businesses to use social media like a traditional help desk. The

customer uses social media as normal however salesforce filters and aggregates data

from customer profiles to provide businesses with all the information they need to follow

up questions and reports.

The salesforce service cloud also provides businesses with a customised portal website

where a business can upload FAQ‟s and allow users to search a knowledge base or


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submit ideas and feedback which can be voted for and commented on by other

customers.

Cost: ranges in price from free to $250 per user, per month. Service Cloud 2 (which

features Facebook & Twitter integration) costs €135 per user per month.

Figure 27: Salesforce Screenshot

5.2.3 Microsoft Dynamics CRM

The biggest advantage Microsoft Dynamics has over its rivals is that its interface is

familiar. It's very similar to Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Office, software which all

small and medium size enterprises will be familiar with.

Because the interface looks familiar, users will warm to it quicker, won't be afraid to

explore its features and there it could require less training / support than other solutions.

Along with providing solutions for Sales Force Automation, Customer Service and

Marketing (more traditional areas of CRM), Microsoft offer a free 'Social Networking

Accelerator' module which can be integrated with their software.


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This module allows businesses to discover and monitor relevant conversations on social

media along with provided analysis of those conversations through a user friendly

dashboard.

This dashboard also identifies 'influential' users who may prove to be the best potential

customers for a business to engage with. Contact details from these users can be

imported from social media sites in to Microsoft's CRM software which can then be used

to monitor lead generation. Finally, businesses can measure the strength of sales

through social media and social media marketing campaigns.

Cost: $34 per user per month

Figure 28: Microsoft Dynamics Screenshot

5.2.4 Sage

According to Larry Ritter, the Vice President of Sage, there are three emerging trends in

CRM and three areas which Sage are focusing on enhancing; [42]

Software as a service / Cloud Computing

Interoperability

Social Media


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In relation to Social Media, Ritter says that Sage CRM customers are interested in three

areas of social media;

Networking - Building communities to share common interests.

Authoring - Sharing your opinions or publishing a profile so people can learn

more about you.

Searching & Following - Tracking what customers, potential customers,

competition and influencers are saying about your business in order to gain

insight.

Sage offers Social CRM through their „ACT!‟ platform which is a contact management

system that provides a social media dashboard and supports integration with many

social networks including LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

Cost: $69 per user per month

Figure 29: SageCRM Screenshot


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Chapter 6 – Facebook Experiment

6.1 Why?

In an effort determine whether Irish SMEs are using all the information at their disposal

about their customers on social media sites when talking to their customers & potential

customers, I decided to carry out an experiment.

6.2 Aims & Objectives

To determine what percentage of Irish SMEs engage with customers on

Facebook.

To determine what percentage of Irish SMEs use publicly available data on

Facebook (on their customers) to tailor their response to customers.

6.3 When?

The experiment was carried out from Feb 2nd – Feb 9th.

6.4 How?

Over twenty Irish SMEs were identified who all had accounts on either Facebook or

Twitter which had been updated at least once in 2011 (which suggested the accounts

are maintained regularly and these businesses have some degree of Social CRM in

place).

Social CRM in Irish SMEs Chapter 6 – Facebook Experiment

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Figure 30: List of Irish SMEs (edited)

Ten of them were chosen at random and contacted on their official Facebook pages

through a Facebook account set up specifically for this experiment. Several details of

that fictional account were open to public access including;

Name: x (edited)

Born: x (edited)

From: Cavan, Ireland

Lives in: Cavan, Ireland


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Figure 31: Facebook Profile (edited)

The aim of the experiment was to determine how many SMEs visit Facebook accounts

to gain knowledge about their customers in order to assist their customers.

Ten Irish SMEs were contacted by „x‟. „x‟ asked questions such as;

“Do you have any branches near me?” – which forced the business to seek more

information (i.e. x‟s location).

“Do you deliver to my area?” – which again forced the business to find x‟s

location.

These questions simply could not be answered unless a business knew where „x‟ lived.

„x‟ did not tell the SMEs where he lived, however that data was on his Facebook account

and open to anyone with Facebook account. The expected result was that SMEs would

figure out where „x‟ lived and respond to his question without asking for further

information.


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If the business responded by asking „x‟ for details on where „x‟ lives, that was regarded

as a „Fail‟ as the business hadn‟t used the data at hand to tailor their response to the

customer.

Although the queries may appear to be rather trivial, these are the type of casual

enquiries and questions businesses are used to receiving on Facebook. Comments and

wall posts on Facebook are much less formal in nature than email for example which

makes it easier and faster for people to communicate. This is one of the reasons why

younger generations spend so much time on social networking sites like Facebook as

opposed to sending emails.

6.5 Results

Five out of the ten businesses (50%) contacted on Facebook replied to „x‟.

Three of the five businesses who responded (30% overall) used the information

at hand to determine x‟s location.

Two businesses who responded asked „x‟ for his location.

6.6 Conclusions

Because only half of businesses who were contacted on Facebook replied to „x‟, it‟s

clear that of those businesses that have a social media presence, many do not take full

advantage of it or perhaps do not know how to take full advantage of it.

Only three of the ten businesses contacted responded as one would „expect‟ i.e.

responding to x‟s query by using his publicly accessible data to help answer his

question.

6.7 Weaknesses

Although x‟s location, according to his Profile was „Cavan, Ireland‟, in theory he could

have been anywhere in the world so assuming he lives in Cavan is only an assumption.

It is possible (although highly unlikely) businesses seen his location but wanted to clarify

his location before commenting further.


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Chapter 7 - Best Practices Social CRM Strategy

7.1 Is having no strategy a strategy?

It goes against everything social media stands for to create and execute scripted plans,

like clockwork. That‟s not how social media works. That‟s not how people‟s social lives

or conversations work. Living life dictates what we‟re talking about. If there‟s a plane

crash tomorrow, that becomes news and dictates what people talk about online and

offline. As of yet, we‟ve no proof that life is scripted. Business isn‟t scripted either.

Whilst a business obviously needs to plan as much as possible to reduce the risk of

failure and capitalise on opportunities, they must also acknowledge the fact that getting

involved in social media means getting involved in the unknown, to a certain degree. It‟s

impossible to predict what the world will be talking about tomorrow, however if a

business can react quickly to news, they can capitalise on it.

In the infamous Icelandic volcanic ash / European airspace shutdown in 2010, Lonely

Planet decided to make all of its iPhone apps free [43] (temporarily) to everyone in a bid

to help stranded passengers find their way around cities and make alternative

arrangements. In doing so they gained new fans and admiration around the world from

passengers in need of help and their offer was quickly spread around Facebook &

twitter.

That one move was seen by many as the reason why Lonely Planet returned to profit in

2010 from heavy losses in 2009. [44] Digital sales increased 37.2% in 2010 as free Apps

were downloaded over 3m times, catapulting Lonely Planet guides to the top Apps list in

all major European cities. That move wasn‟t planned by Lonely Planet, it couldn‟t

possibly have been planned. They made a quick decision reacting to breaking news and

reaped the benefits.

In this case, Lonely Planet‟s decision to change strategy overnight was critical, which is

why it‟s always important to monitor trends in social media and have the flexibility to

make decisions quickly if a business sees an opportunity to capitalise on trends.

Social CRM in Irish SMEs Chapter 7 – Best Practices Social CRM Strategy

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7.2 The Five 5 M’s

Ray Wang, author of Altimeter‟s Social CRM report [45] and former head of CRM at

Forrester Research, suggests that businesses are beginning to understand the

„relationship‟ bit in CRM and explore social interaction with customers [46]. However, in

a lot of cases there is no plan or clearly defined goal. Wang says that in order to co-

ordinate a business‟s plan on social media, they must start with the 5 M‟s approach...

7.2.1 Monitoring

This involves monitoring keywords like your business name or product names. No

business can act based on information they don‟t have so the first step in any Social

CRM strategy must always be to listen to what customers are saying about your

business.

Earlier in this dissertation, several free, online monitoring tools were reviewed which can

help with this filtering process. It‟s important to strike a balance between too specific and

too broad when searching for keywords. Too specific e.g. “French Red Wine in Dundalk,

Ireland” might mean opportunities are missed. Too broad e.g. “Red Wine” might result in

too much „noise‟ or involve more filtering.

7.2.2 Mapping

If a business has a Facebook page or twitter account and uses it to promote latest news,

that‟s not Social CRM. It will never be classed as Social CRM. In both of those cases,

the „relationship‟ is missing. There is no engagement with the customer, there is no

conversation. It‟s all one way.

Ideally a business should be following its customers on twitter and that twitter account

should then be hooked up to a business‟s CRM system. Mapping is all about information

efficiency and integrating as much social activity as possible in to Social CRM software.

Whilst a Facebook, Twitter, YouTube account etc... can all be managed individually, it‟s

much easier and less time consuming for a business to aggregate data from all three

services and publish information to all three services from the same place i.e. Social

CRM software.


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When dealing with customer data, aggregation is also important. If a customer has a

public profile on Google, LinkedIn, Twitter etc... It makes sense to specific pull

information from all three profiles in to one „customer‟ database.

7.2.3 Management

In order to manage social media data, there needs to be clearly defined goals or

objectives. A business must ask itself what purpose does this data serve? Why do they

need to use social media in the first place? How do they handle the „noise‟ social media

can create?

Crisis management through social media is becoming increasingly important for

businesses. It‟s recommending businesses conduct crisis management „fire drills‟ much

like they‟re legally required to do in real life.

If a business‟s reputation is being severely damaged online a business must have

somebody who is in charge of dealing with these issues. If that person is off on holidays,

there needs to be a replacement. In summary there needs to be plans and backup plans

and that all falls under the heading of management.

7.2.4 Middleware

Middleware is the link between the social media world and the business world. Data

must flow easily between the two, in real time in order to provide valuable information to

businesses.

Analytics elements and dashboards in Social CRM software must display data in real

time from social media profiles, email newsletters etc... In order to provide value and to

allow for comprehensive analysis.

7.2.5 Measurement

In order to improve upon something, you need to be able to measure it and compare it to

previous results. Social media in a business is no different.

Whether the objective is to improve customer loyalty, satisfaction or increase brand

awareness, all of those objectives must be measurable.


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Dashboards in Social CRM Software must be capable of comparing metrics over time or

perhaps be able to predict future trends based on history.

7.3 Social Media Website Best Practices

The process of creating social media profiles is a simple one however it‟s important a

business recognises all social media websites are not the same. Each network has its

own culture, its own rules however most of them share similar features which a business

must try to standardize to prevent confusion.

For example, on almost all social networks, business have the opportunity to create

custom urls. If a business name is „taken‟, more often than not it‟s a case of „tough luck‟

unless the username in question happens to be trademarked.

Having various accounts on different social networks with various usernames simply

confuses users and makes it difficult for them to remember a business‟ username on a

certain network.

Here are some „best practices‟ when creating business profiles and interacting with

users on popular social networks.

YouTube

Reserve a custom url e.g. youtube.com/businessname

Customise your YouTube channel by adding background images / logos and

business colours.

Tag videos with relevant keywords and describe them accurately to improve

search engine optimization.

Respond to comments and thank subscribers

Facebook

Reserve a custom url e.g. facebook.com/businessname

Assign page administration access to trusted employee / employees

Upload a profile picture in proper dimensions for best results

Fill out as much information as possible about the business


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Encourage customers to like and comment on the business page

Provide links to other social media profiles the business has

Twitter

Reserve a custom url e.g. twitter.com/businessname

Explain who you are, what you do and how you can help people (in 140

character biography)

Customise profile background with an image, perhaps with contact details

Retweet relevant or interesting posts from twitter users you follow

Ask questions to generate conversation and increase visibility

Post pictures, coupons, breaking news from the company – anything which adds

value and gives users reason to follow your twitter account.

Chapter 8 – Case Study [edited]


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Chapter 9 - Conclusion

9.1 Objectives Met?

This dissertation had several primary objectives, all of which will be discussed below.

Find out HOW Irish SMEs are using Social CRM

Chapter 4 discussed Social CRM in Ireland and two Microsoft Reports from 2006 and

2011 [47] showed the growth in CRM usage amongst Irish businesses over that 5 years

period. That report also highlighted the most popular type of CRM software used which

surprisingly was Microsoft Excel.

In Chapter 6, I carried out an experiment designed to test whether Irish SMEs were

monitoring their Facebook pages and using all the information at their disposal to

respond to customers. The results showed half of SMEs didn‟t even respond to

comments, suggesting no Social CRM strategy was in place.

To find out WHY Irish SMEs are / are not using Social CRM.

In Chapter 3, I highlighted the benefits of Social CRM and why businesses should use

social media. In 3.2.5 we seen an example of an Irish hotel using Facebook to

personally respond to customers and thank them for their comments. In 3.2.6 we seen

another example of a pub asking customers for feedback and ideas on a new cocktail

menu they were launching. In chapter 3.2.6, we saw examples of how businesses are

using foursquare and geolocation services to reward loyal customers.

As for reasons why Irish businesses aren‟t adopting Social CRM, in Chapter 3.3, we

learned that 64% of Irish businesses agree that social media increases their workload

[22]. We also learned of the negative PR that can result from lack of staff training on

social media in 3.3.1. As was pointed out in the case study in Chapter 6, knowing how to

calculate ROI or trying to justify and measure social media in business is also a problem

for businesses.

Review Social CRM tools and technologies that are available to Irish SMEs.

In Chapter 5, I focused on reviewing the most popular social media monitoring tools

online along with popular Social CRM Software.

Social CRM in Irish SMEs Chapter 9 – Conclusion

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They vary greatly in price; some free, some requiring monthly fees per user licence.

Whilst all of them have their own unique selling points, choosing which tools and

software to use will depend largely on budget, number of users using the software and

business objectives.

Explore the training options available in this area for SMEs.

In Chapter 4.5, I outlined the various social media consultants and training companies

and the services they provide within Ireland. Most Social CRM providers also offer

training and support with Microsoft for example providing certification in their Microsoft

Dynamics software.

Carry out a Facebook experiment to see social CRM in action.

Chapter 6 discusses the Facebook experiment carried out. The aim of the experiment

was to test whether Irish businesses were taking time to learn about their customers

through social media before responding to them.

The results showed that not only did businesses not use all the information at hand to

tailor their response to a potential customer, half of those businesses contacted didn‟t

even respond to the potential customer.

Develop a best practices Social CRM strategy for Irish SMEs.

In Chapter 7, I questioned whether not having a Social CRM strategy was in fact

strategy in itself and gave an example of how being flexible and making quick decisions

can allow a business to take exploit new trends or breaking news.

However Altimeter‟s well respected Social CRM report [45] quickly highlighted the need

for at least some degree of structure and strategy when it comes to Social CRM. Their „5

M‟s‟ approach acts as a basic skeleton structure for any Social CRM strategy.

Case Study

Finally in Chapter 8, I worked with a company called x to find out information about the

company and propose a Social CRM strategy tailored to suit their business and industry.


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9.2 Final Thoughts

The biggest problem with carrying out any kind of research involving social media is how

quickly the landscape can change. Since work began on this dissertation, the number of

Facebook users in Ireland has increased by about 20%. Irish LinkedIn user numbers

have also increased by about 20%.

Facebook features like „places‟, „deals‟ and „questions‟ didn‟t exist in Ireland. The song

„Horse Outside‟ by Irish group Rubberbandits hadn‟t been viewed by 7m people on

YouTube, it hadn‟t even been written. Outside of Ireland, revolutions in Egypt and

Tunisia (which have been largely attributed to the power of social media) hadn‟t yet

happened.

Some of these events have changed lives and in some cases change the way people

communicate or enhance communication. They also dictate the topic of every day

conversation around the world in classrooms, on streets and in workplaces.

For most people, these events create opportunities and hope or provide entertainment.

They inspire and create real belief amongst „ordinary‟ people that they do have power

and they do have a purpose, be it as individuals or collectively as a one large group.

This new found (and increasing) sense of „power‟ customers have thanks to social media

creates both problems and opportunities for businesses on a daily basis.

With a Social CRM strategy in place and with the right tools and software in place to

execute that strategy, businesses can reap the rewards from engaging with customers

online through social media.


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