The document discusses democratizing social CRM by making social customer data accessible to all enterprise applications, not just a select few, through the Buzzient API. It argues that social CRM should be available across both cloud and on-premise applications in a hybrid environment, rather than an all-or-nothing proposition. The API aims to give customers control and portability over their own social data, rather than locking them into specific vendor platforms.

1. Democratizing Social CRM: The Buzzient API | Buzzient http://www.buzzient.com/blog/democratizing-social-crm-the-bu...
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Democratizing Social CRM: The
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March 21, 2012
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Social CRM: It's made of PEOPLE
We’re living in exciting times, where people all over the world are coming together and clamoring for
democracy, inclusion, and the right to self-representation. Though the political overtones of this movement
are catching most of the spotlight, it’s also of note that these demonstrations are both fueled and enabled
in many cases by social media.
When it comes to the use of social media within enterprises, the current trend has been anything but
democratic. After years of skepticism by end users and vendors alike, both are moving quickly to embrace
social media as a new channel. Though largely driven by marketing communications and brand
management, social media is becoming more and more central to Customer Relationship Management
(CRM). The combination of social data to CRM has created the new application category Social CRM.
In the last year, we’ve seen a variety of stronger acknowledgement by vendors of the centrality of social
media to CRM. Most notably, Salesforce.com acquired Radian6 for $340M in May 2011. This has set off a
bit of a footrace of vendor applications all trying to internally develop or acquire a social layer.
The inclusion of the voice of the customer in business applications has been the thesis of Buzzient since
day one. With that focus, and the experience of building the only cross platform Social CRM application
from scratch, we’ve learned a few things that have become guiding principles:
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2. Democratizing Social CRM: The Buzzient API | Buzzient http://www.buzzient.com/blog/democratizing-social-crm-the-bu...
Social CRM should be available to ALL applications in the enterprise, not just a select few.
Social CRM was initially targeted at marketing functions. Much like Internet access was initially hoarded by
“druids” in corporate IT 15 years ago, social has initially been isolated to standalone “social listening”
teams in certain companies. These teams stand as the gatekeepers between the voice of the customer
and the overall enterprise. Over time however, we’ve seen increased interest in other business functions
such as customer service, sales, and loyalty management. At Buzzient we’ve come to see that the Social
CRM data should extend to all applications and functions in the enterprise that rely upon customer data. At
the end of the day, it’s all about providing service to the customer, right? Recent Blog Posts
Democratizing Social CRM: The Buzzient API
This also means that Social CRM shouldn’t be the exclusive capabilities of a few applications using ...
proprietary, closed Social CRM solutions. The chosen few vendors who have spent hundreds of millions of Read More »
$’s in acquiring new capabilities shouldn’t have a stranglehold on the social data of a customer. EVERY
Flying NXNE vs. SXSW; Serving the Enterprise with
application that touches a customer or a customer’s process should have the right and freedom to access
Social Media from Boston
social data. Democracy in action.
As I boarded the red-eye Friday night from San Francisco...
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Social CRM shouldn’t be an all or nothing proposition when it comes to the cloud.
CoIT: Is Boston Missing the Boat?
I’m in SF this week for customer meetings, fundraising,
Though Buzzient works with a variety of application vendors, we’ve noticed that almost without exception, and...
the closed systems providers of Social CRM have done so only for SaaS applications. So, in order to Read More »
access social data on your customer, those vendors posit that you have to junk all of your existing
on-premise applications. So, the “my way or the highway” Social CRM vendors would have you think.
Maybe this is from our bootstrapped roots, but at Buzzient we don’t believe you should EVER throw
Tag Cloud
anything away unless you absolutely have to. Especially when it comes to business applications where you
adam metz Buzzient CRM
may have invested a decade and tens of millions of $’s. The Buzzient approach is to integrate social media
with both new and existing applications. Doing the latter speeds up the deployment of Social CRM
Customer Service Customer
implementations, enables the amortization of the enterprise app over a longer time period, and reduces the Support Enterprise
echo chamber
training load on users. Social CRM shouldn’t be an all or nothing deal; a hybrid environment works just fine Enterprise Integration
and costs less than a replacement strategy. Facebook Innovation District
Integration Interactive Intelligence Lead Generation
Social CRM belongs to the customer, not the application vendor. lessons learned Loyalty M&A Open Social Enterprise
Oracle Press Pricing Radian6 Retail
As much as it’s great to hear about application vendors acquiring social media capabilities, the reality is
Social
Salesforce.com Siebel siebel crm
that Social CRM isn’t a feature that belongs to the vendors. Social CRM, i.e., the relationship based on
social data, belongs to the customer. Let’s face it, it’s the customer’s data, not the vendor’s. So, the
CRM SocialCRM social customer
customer should be able to migrate that data to whatever application needs it, and not be locked into the social enterprise
specific vendor image of data. So, portability of Social CRM data is a fundamental right of the customer. applications Socialmedia Social
When one looks at existing Social CRM solutions in the market, that portability is precisely what is NOT
Media Social Media
provided. In fact, certain vendors are intent on locking the social customer into their application platform.
Analytics social media integration
Social Media
Social Media Management
Buzzient has taken a very different approach. First of all, we’ve made the social data we analyze available
to a wide variety of applications, from different vendors. Second, we support cloud/SaaS, on-premise, as
Marketing Social Media Publishing social media reach
Social Media Tools social network analysis Techcrunch
well as hybrid configurations. We’re the only Social CRM vendor to do so. Last, we keep the customer’s
data portable; if the social data needs to be leveraged across different applications, or even provided to the Technology Twitter workflow
end user, we enable that mobility. When you add up all of these capabilities, you have what we refer to as
the Open Social Enterprise (go ask the “other guys” what that means to them ;o)).
Social CRM and the Enterprise
As the say down home in Emanuel County, Georgia, “The bulls*** stops when the tailgate drops”. That is,
Adam Metz Enterprise Software Insider
there is a time when you have to step up and prove your point. To that effect, Buzzient released our
Developer API this week. The API is available at: Oracle CRM Blog Paul Greenberg CRM
Web Strategy by Jeremiah Xenophon Strategies
http://developers.buzzient.com/
The Buzzient API enables all of the value propositions made in this post. If you’re an application vendor,
you can quickly add a social CRM component to your application. If you’re an end user, you can test the
extension of your existing apps with social CRM. If you’re a consumer, feel confident that all the data we
expose can be transferred across different applications if necessary, so that there’s no longer an excuse for
companies not hearing you roar on social media.
We at Buzzient believe that Social CRM data should be democratic, open, shared and portable. Don’t you
agree?
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3. Democratizing Social CRM: The Buzzient API | Buzzient http://www.buzzient.com/blog/democratizing-social-crm-the-bu...
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