The blend of social media and customer relationship management referred to as social CRM enhances traditional CRM and engages it with social media which tracks new leads from Twitter and Facebook into the sales funnel. According to Jon Ferrara, CEO of Nimble, realizing the importance of authentic and relevant human connections in business customer relationship management has become an integral part of our lives. Customers nowadays want to connect with the real people they do business with and get delighted and empowered resulting in a renaissance of customer management. Nowadays marketing has gone beyond just driving customers to get the order. Today customers have moved beyond commercials, glossy stick marketing materials and “Slick Willy” sales people. They now can have converse online and expect relevant conversations. Instead of pushing customers to just buy their products social businesses should become a part of the marketing and buyer funnel adding value to those conversations to become trust worthy. Markets are utilizing the new technology today where conversations happen already in public, private and in others various mediums. Companies instead of controlling conversations and employees they should educate and empower both employees and customers. Companies now empower their customer-facing team members to share content and engage on a worldwide basis, and they understand that they are selling to a community comprising influencers, editors, analysts, tech partners, third party developers, value-added resellers etc. empowering, educating and adding value results in success which breeds success.

read more at: http://www.exacttarget.com/blog/how-social-media-and-crm-work-together-successfully/