Benefits of Social Media for Customer Reference Programs

Ever since Jeremiah Owyang wrote his article back in 2007 called "The Impacts of Social Media on Corporate Customer Reference Programs" it's been a hot topic in the customer reference community.

If you haven't embraced it yet, it's time to take another look. The benefits I have found from using social media with my reference program include:
• Increase awareness and generate sales leads
• Provide reference assets on channels where my prospects are and in language they are used to
• Thought Leadership and an opportunity to showcase your reference customers
• Humanize your Brand (Make it about your customers not just your products)

Personally I find social media beneficial BUT it's important to remember that social media is just part of our customer reference program mix and not the be-all end-all of your customer reference program. For example if you are the marketing director for a company you would never spend all your dollars on ONE item like Google ads. Instead you would spread your marketing dollars in different mediums including online advertising, lead generation programs, webinars, print ads, email campaigns, social media campaigns, etc. The same needs to apply to customer reference programs. If you spend 100% of your time doing social media you will miss customers and prospects that are NOT using social media. The other day I heard a statistic that 20% of Americans still aren't Internet users. If you are at a B-to-C company this is really important because you will automatically miss 20% of your audience if you only rely on internet marketing campaigns.

One of my favorite definitions of social media is "A new set of tools that allows humans to do what we love most: tell stories, connect and commiserate with one another." As customer reference managers, that's what we do. We tell stories.

Happy referencing!

A Simple Thank You

A few years I heard a GREAT tip at a Customer Reference Forum that was really impactful. The person said they write hand written notes to thank their references. At that time I was a new to the role and working quite a bit and wondered how I would ever have the time to do hand written thank you notes. However I have become a big believer of doing these. I try to send out some every Christmas thanking 'key' customer references for their help over the past year and wishing them a happy new year! I will also do this throughout the year if a customer goes above and beyond in helping out. It's funny because they has carried over into my personal life. If someone goes way out of their way to help me I send their company a thank you email or call their manager. I might only do this a few times a month which doesn't take much time at all but imagine if we all started doing this what a different world it would be!

By the way if you haven't signed up yet for the next conference you might want to look into this! It's a great way to network, learn best practices, help with challenges you might be facing, help with your program planning and so much more! Bill Lee of the Customer Reference Forum has these on the east coast too but I usually go to the west coast event. I love that they are only two days long so I am not out of the office too long. Learn more http://customerreferenceforum.com/event2011/index.php.