By Alicia Fiorletta, Senior Editor
It seems like it’s always a party when Salesforce is involved, and my day at the Salesforce World Tour was no exception. The cloud company hit the Javits Center in New York City yesterday to unveil new customer success stories and the latest iteration of Social Studio, which will enable more unified social engagement across Salesforce applications.
I don’t need to go into much detail around the importance of social media. As consumers yourselves, I’m sure you tap into Facebook, Twitter and other networks to see what’s trending, seek opinions from peers and even leave a comment on one of your favorite brand’s pages. So, as retail marketers and executives, you definitely know that your consumers are doing the same.
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The latest version of Social Studio empowers team members across sales, marketing and service/support to access social listening, analysis, content marketing and engagement solutions across all devices.
The Salesforce Marketing Cloud is the official “home base” for Social Studio, according to Scott McCorkle, CEO of Salesforce Marketing Cloud at Salesforce. The latest iteration is designed to combine tools and features from Salesforce’s string of acquisitions, including ExactTarget, Radian6 and Buddy Media.
But now, “you can see how Social Studio is now the fabric of every part of Salesforce’s product offering, from the Marketing Cloud, to the Service Cloud and Sales Cloud,” McCorkle said during a media briefing. Businesses can “turn signals of buying intent into actionable information across the entire organization.”
While marketers can upload and share photos, videos and other branded content, sales reps can engage leads and service teams can better track and respond to inquiries.
All social posts and engagements flow into one central location, and users can access information regarding social sentiment and what’s trending across all social networks. Users can even dig into specific posts to garner more information about what customers and prospects are talking about and sharing with their communities.
Relevant social feedback can be shared across the entire organization, enabling the right team members to respond to posts, questions and concerns.
During the World Tour, we learned about a variety of different real-life use cases:
- Activision, a videogame and entertainment company, has created self-service and social customer service experiences tied to each of its games. Since using Salesforce solutions, the company has seen a shift in service inquiries. In 2011, 45% of inquiries happened over the phone. Now, more than 90% are handled via self-service or social media.
- McDonald’s uses Social Studio to optimize brand and local conversations on social media. With more than 14,000 restaurants, the fast food chain is focused on building relationships with customers on a more local and personal level.
- Elizabeth Arden relies on Social Studio to maintain its brand image and drive loyalty among consumers worldwide. A 100-year-old company, Elizabeth Arden has presence in more than 100 countries around the world, and sells a variety of products across skincare, fragrance and color cosmetics categories. With Social Studio, the marketing team can build upon Elizabeth Arden’s strong brand heritage and better reach and connect with consumers worldwide. Although there still is a central, consistent brand voice, Social Studio allows Elizabeth Arden to tailor content and messages at a local level.
Social Studio is generally available for current Salesforce customers and includes unlimited users starting at $1,000 per month. New Social Studio listening and sales capabilities are in beta and will be generally available starting in February 2015. Service Cloud customers can start using social customer service at no additional charge, and can manage up to two Facebook or Twitter accounts directly from the app.
Want to learn more about Social Studio? Click here to watch a demo!
