HOW & WHY TO INTEGRATE SOCIAL MEDIA INTO WINERY CRM

Social Media is a Communication Channel. CRM is a Strategy.

If you’ve read my blog, you’ll realize I am a passionate believer that having an overall CRM strategy is essential for a winery.

CRM is Customer Relationship Management.
It is how you talk/sell/greet/respond to your customer groups.

To compete with all the other wineries that consumers interact with, you must to recognize, respect and interact with your customer like you know them.  And, to do this, businesses are finding that incorporating Social Media into their overall CRM strategy is becoming an imperative.

Five Steps to Integrate Social Media into your CRM Strategy

1. Know Your Customers — Ask your current clients what social media they are using. (It is especially important to know what social media your best customers are using.)  Then you will have a good clue about where you should be focusing your efforts.
2. Get Everyone On-Board — Ensure that your staff and all stakeholders are involved with your plan to integrate social media into your CRM strategy. This is a coordinated effort requiring discipline and time, and if everyone doesn’t do their part, you will not get engagement.
3. Choose Your Channel Based on Your Strategy — Social Media is a communication channel – like the telephone.  Not a strategy in, an of, itself.  So they key is to incorporate Social Media into your existing strategy.  If you are driving awareness to your tasting room with other vehicles, then use Social Media for that as well.  If you are by appointment only and understaffed and don’t want more traffic, then using Twitter to tweet about your tasting room doesn’t make sense.  And, not all Social Media channels are good for all objectives.  Chose wisely.
4. Choose Three, and Do Well — There are many, create a social media account in the top three. Create branded pages and profiles that match your current brand and invite your current customers to join you.  And, adjust your workflow to accommodate consistent and routine communication.  You don’t check your voice mail or email messages once a week, so you can’t treat Twitter or Facebook like that either.  Create rules and procedures for all workers to follow when dealing with social media and appoint those who will be managing the Social Media in question.
5. Capture Metrics — Always check the numbers! Anytime you do anything today you should be collecting data that you or someone else can analyze to ensure that you’re getting your time and money’s worth. Realize that Social Media is a long term strategy and plan to stick with it for at least a year.  I recommend adjusting quarterly to every six months to tweak tools that aren’t working, and then add in any new channels that may have cropped up.

I Promised You a “Why”

Why do this extra work when you’ve existed for years without it?  If you find yourself among the camp of those who believe Social Media is not much more than a huge “time suck” get a load of these statistics, and perhaps rethink your opinion:

Don’t be Scared, The Water is FinE...

Some businesses shy away from Social Media due to the feeling of lost control over the communication. After all, we’re used to writing the copy, distributing the press release, managing the website.  But, Social Media is two-way communication, with customers having a lot of control over the discussion (and reaction to the discussion). It also takes time, and discipline to build this relationship.

But, if you can overcome the fear, and find the time, you will find that the relationships you develop are strong and REAL.  Every week, a “follower” or “friend” asks to meet me after connecting on Social Media – they make a special point on their trip to see their friend.  These are real connections and valuable of your time.  Building virtual communities not only allows your customers to converse with you, but also each other.  In doing so you can improve your customer service and research. Getting to know your clients via social media goes further than they you could possibly imagine.  So dive in!

Source:

1 Bazaarvoice & The CMO Club Survey: Social Data Impacts CMO Decisions, Predictions & Forecasts

2 CompTIA’s Social Business: Trends and Opportunities study

RELATED ARTICLES

The Evolution of Social CRM (litmanlive.co.uk)
5 types of social media strategies (churchofcustomer.com)
Be a Social CRM Hero! (socialfish.org)
What Are The Best Social CRM Analytics Solutions? (techwench.com)