Please note: Before we get started on Part II of this three-part series, I did want to state that we will be discussing free solutions. I have no doubt that enterprise and customized solutions are available. Names that have been mentioned to me include: Microsoft CRM, vTiger, Sugar CRM paired with Pluck and others. Me, I’m on a budget and that budget is pretty slim (smile).
When we left off on the previous post we were discussing the need to classify our contacts as either being “A”, “B”, “C”, or “D”. You may wish to get rid of “D” (delete) from the get go which means that massive amounts of blood must be spilled. Don’t worry, you will thank me later (smile). However, social media does present its own unique twists in the classification process. If I communicate with somebody via email there is some evidence that I have probably engaged with that individual directly. Looking at my email and my CRM, it should also be fairly easy to identify who invests what dollars with me annually. On the other hand, with social media …
- How many people do I really know and how many of those have I engaged with directly? Be honest. For me, that is not too damn many.
- Social media connections make it more difficult to assess value. As an example, a lot of the folks that I follow on Twitter provide me with real value in terms of information that I want and need. Should this also be considered? I would think so. If I am an internet marketer or have 10,000′s of followers, this task may prove to be insurmountable, unnecessary, and maybe even undesirable.
- The same could be said for FaceBook and LinkedIn.
- What about each contact’s potential to connect me with others. Still another factor.
- How about distance? Is it important, even necessary, that your best connections be local? That is something that you will need to decide.
So, how do we need to go about the actual physical classification process with each of our four services?
- Email – with something like Gmail you can do groups. With Outlook, choose an open field that you would normally not use. Even something like “IM address”. Something that you can search and sort by.
- Twitter – create lists
- FaceBook – create lists
- LinkedIn – if you have a premium account, you can create profile folders. Otherwise use tags.
Now, and this assuming I have only one email account, I have four separate lists. And, if I wish, I can work all four of these lists separately based on the 80/20 rule where we will devoting the majority of our time and efforts toward the 20%. Having four sets of contacts sucks so this now gets even more complex. While all of these services are very adept at allowing you to import your contact lists to them, they are not so friendly about exporting contact information out so that you can import that into a central database. Most email and contact management programs would be the exception (easy to import/export) but, look at …
- FaceBook – I found some utilities that will go around FaceBook and get you some contact information but email addresses are totally blocked from any export.
- Twitter – Twitter does not even use email addresses per se. There are some utilities that will backup and allow you to export what Twitter does have. Click here to read an article with some great links to some options although I have tried none of them. For the sake of this example, let’s ass/u/me that they will work as described.
- LinkedIn – at least they have relented and will allow you to export which was not always the case.
Now I have four export files. That is also ass/u/ming that I was able to export my classification data along with everything else so that I can sort later. Otherwise, I could potentially be looking at export files for “A”, “B”, and “C” and for all four databases. That’s 12 files. Yikes! Are we having fun yet (smile)? What should I do with them? I’d like to have them all in one place but where would that place be?
Ideally, we would now import each of these files into a CRM and then we are off to the races. For purposes of demonstration we will use Outlook. Outlook is not much of a CRM (even with Business Contact Manager) but at least it is something that most of us are familiar with and can relate to. However, there are at least five glaring obstacles to this being a truly viable solution …
- The duplicates that will likely be generated by each database are huge. Remember, for a lot of these folks you are likely connected via more than one service. A massive amount of cleanup is going to be required.
- This same cleanup process is going to render the entire database useless from a Social CRM standpoint unless you can effectively merge records vs. delete duplicates.
- What you will end up with but will the final contact record reflect all of their social networks? If you are using Outlook, the simple answer is that it “will not”. There are no fields in Outlook dedicated to social networks. At least not in 2007. Perhaps in 2010? You are only allowed one web address so that is out. I suppose you could put them in “notes”.
- Will your choice of CRM monitor your contact’s ongoing social media activity?
- What happens when new contacts are added to one or more of your social media networks? Remember classification, export, import like we just completed? Do it all again. Repeatedly.
One of the most basic of sales principles is to “make them sick then make them well”. If at this point I don’t have you at least on all fours and praying at the porcelain altar, I haven’t done my job. My next post will, hopefully, dispense a little Pepto Bismol (smile).
Thanks for visiting! Watch for Part III!
Craig
