By Ryan Zuk, senior media and analyst relations manager, Sage CRM Solutions

[EDITORS' NOTE: This is part of a series of posts that began here, dissecting a two-page chart that appeared in CRM magazine's June 2009 issue on social media. The digital edition of that issue can be found here, and a standalone image of the chart itself can be seen here. (Click on the “View Full Size” button at the top right of that page.) To view all posts in the series, please add this RSS feed to your RSS reader.]

JUNE 6, 2009 — Christopher Carfi of Cerado nailed a big point with his video blog contribution to this social experiment:

Customers belong at the center of CRM magazine’s thought-provoking Social Media Maturity Model, since the model itself focuses on communicating, collaborating, and doing business with them.

Perhaps this is a natural assumption for many people viewing the model, although I think most would also agree it’s important to define your audience, prospects, partners, and customers — your people — and to stay focused on serving them.

Consider the buyer-persona concept that David Meerman Scott encourages in his writing and presentations. [Editors' Note: David Meerman Scott will be participating in this series later this month.] Businesses can benefit by putting a name and a face to all types of members within their addressable markets, keeping current profiles of each, and solving their problems.

Now more than ever, whether considering the struggling economy or the Long Tail nature of commerce, we need to get to know our people better, learn what motivates them, and use this information to create connections that sustain and grow successful businesses.

Genuine conversations remain the best way to do this, despite all the fancy Web and social networking tools now available to us. (And we do so love the tools! As Esteban Kolsky notes in his comment on Mike Fauscette’s June 2nd post, they’re really a new set of enablers.)

[Editors' Note: CRM guru Paul Greenberg also examined these tools in the November 2008 issue of CRM.]

To successfully relate to customers in our right-now, no-waiting economy, indirect communication needs to give way to direct communication, and, as the Social Media Maturity Model indicates in its upper-right quadrant, dictating needs to evolve into collaborating. (See image, left.)

Social media provides public relations an opportunity to assist this transition while impacting all corners of the social media maturity model. Perhaps the model needs to be expressed in a more circular ecosystem fashion — again, positioning customers in the middle.

Regardless, it will be an interesting journey to the era of social commerce. Here are some thoughts on how PR can help organizations and customers get there:

• Moving the Needle – Organizations need to move from “Why social media?” to “How do we implement social media?” They need someone to demonstrate the benefits of monitoring and participating on the social Web. This is a perfect role for PR, although PR doesn’t have to have sole ownership of it.
• Connecting the Dots – Customers don’t want a megaphone communications approach — they want information that’s tailored to their needs. Social networking gives us an authentic means of discovery. PR can encourage and facilitate customer conversations that help marketing, sales, and service further understand buyer motivations so products and services can address the needs of real people.
• Keeping It Real – As organizations venture into social media conversations, they’ll need to consider bridging virtual with reality. Not every interaction should be online; in-person engagement with customers still matters. PR is in a unique position to help create these opportunities and “events.” As such, PR must also be comfortable providing accurate information not only to traditional media, analysts, bloggers, and market influencers, but also to customers directly. Doing so is the catalyst for authentic collaboration with customers to create products and services that are truly desired, and to shape the branding and messages that support them.

These aren’t flip-the-switch processes. They require learning and maturing, and are well worth the effort of connecting directly with the customers we’re trying to reach in the first place.

My thanks to Josh and the CRM magazine staff for inviting me to participate, to all the contributors of this blog series, and to everyone reading and commenting. Let’s see where this goes.

Ryan Zuk, APR, is senior media and analyst relations manager for Sage CRM Solutions, part of The Sage Group plc, supplier of business management software and services to more than 5.8 million small and midsize business customers worldwide. He also writes the monthly “Digital Dialogue” column for the Public Relations Society of America’s PR Tactics journal — a recent example of his work can be seen here — and blogs at criticalmasspr.com. He can be reached via email at ryanzuk@gmail.com and on Twitter as @ryanzuk.