BPM Today: Social Networking Makes CRM Business Case

It is becoming clear that social networking will be -- if it is not already -- yet another methodology to be embedded in a sales operation.

The next wave of social-networking applications will have to incorporate some kind of tangible value-add to the company -- and, most likely, that will be in CRM, specifically sales and lead generation.

On Monday, Spoke Software, a hosted provider of social networking, will announce its technology for work groups, a complement to its Spoke Network for individual professionals. The work-group module, which will debut in early March, will integrate into Web-based sales-force automation and CRM applications. Spoke says there are 20 work groups lined up to implement its new product, including the Atlanta Braves, Citibank and MetLife.

Mark Organ, CEO of Eloqua, a lead-generation software provider, told CRM Daily that his company has been using Spoke Software in a similar manner. "It is an amazing tool," he enthused. "What we have done is integrate Spoke into our sales workflow."

As a result, lead generation at the company has, in effect, morphed into a two-pronged operation. "We use traditional lead generation techniques in our own software coupled with Spoke to see if there is another contact we should approach outside of the traditional campaign," Organ said.

Indeed, Spoke Software co-founder Chris Tolles says the application extends a company's CRM system instead of replacing it. "Most CRM systems track a contact's presence in a system. We, on the other hand, through communications traffic, measure and rate how well you know this contact."