Social Media B2B

“Relationships” is the one word we all hear when talking to B2B sales driven organizations. To the sales team and executives relationships are critical to closing a sale. For this reason most companies use some type of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. CRM software allows organizations to have dynamic records of their customers complete with contact information, business information, notes, etc. CRM data is priceless to many companies, but as the social web develops incorporating user generated content is critical to improving customer relationships.

Social media as moved past a marketing and communications function to become a function important to all aspects of business. I have long thought that integrating data from the social web into CRM systems will be a key opportunity for improving B2B relationships and sales. With the increase in popularity of real-time social applications like Twitter and FriendFeed the issue takes even greater importance. This social data will begin to change the design and features of CRM software and the demand for customized real-time information will become a “need” not a “want” for B2B sales forces.

Though this issue is often under discussed, I want to give create to Chris Brogan and the team at Radian6 for putting together a Rockstars of Social CRM event and then sharing the video on the web for all of us to learn from. The video is below and contains some great information on social CRM, you may want to skip the first minute or two if you already know about Radian6 and their SalesForce.com integration.

Kipp Bodnar is publisher of SocialMediaB2B.com. Follow Kipp on Twitter @kippbodnar.