There’s been a lot of conversation about Social Media Command Centers in the past. As 2013 emerges, we believe at Buzzient that this is going to be shown to be a dead end. In reality, social media data for customer care and other purposes needs to be a part of the application experience, and not a standalone “department”.
Remember DotCom subsidiaries? These were the specialized groups in the company that “handled” the internet in the late 90′s. If you wanted to post something outside the corporate firewall, you had to go through these gatekeepers. DotCom groups were also chartered with figuring out the internet business model for the corporation. In the meantime, normal everyday use of the internet was actively discouraged unless sanctioned.
DotCom team
Think of how silly that sounds today. Having to sanction a web search, or the creation of a web-based marketing campaign or test. At Buzzient, we believe that shuttling the social listening, customer care, and analytics efforts through a standalone department will seem just as silly by year end. Posting to Twitter or Facebook, or responding to a customer on one of these channels shouldn’t be the domain of people who in many cases know nothing about the underlying business processes of customer care or ecommerce. Social will need to be integrated with the CRM, ERP, ecommerce and other applications used by the business unit, and not left up to these “outboard motor” standalone teams.
Look on the bright side, though. The LED/LCD screen makers have had a good run at these companies…