Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang), now with the Altimeter Group, does an interesting analysis of Social CRM vendors’ own social marketing (or lack thereof) efforts.
I find it particularly interesting because it somewhat validates my pitch lately, “If you want a social media expert…check out their own execution.”
His methodology is pretty simple and probably sufficient: Are they integrating social content about themselves, creating a viable community around the product, providing thought leadership, and (“the proof in the pudding”) engaging themselves. I like the approach, but…
As a company moving our own lead management software into the social CRM realm and launching another to monitor for social media trigger events sometimes you:
- Neglect your own marketing to move your clients forward
- Focus your first social media marketing in native environments, like blogs and Twitter
- Are taking a different social CRM approach, rather than just bolting on to an existing CRM solution
This all goes to illustrate my argument that the analysis might be a bit premature and narrowly focused.
I’m surprised that Jeremiah didn’t expand the survey to at least include the full range of companies in his signature “Industry Index” for Social CRM offerings. And I have to concur with John Moore (@JohnFMoore), self-appointed SocialCRM (#scrm) evangelist, analysis that the Altimeter Group might have gotten a little tunnel-vision on this Social CRM Survey.
To end on a positive note: I appreciate Jeremiah Owyang and the Altimeter Group setting expectations and benchmarks for this emerging segment of technology to follow.
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About Bill Rice
