Social CRM is use of social media services, techniques and technology to enable organisations to engage with their customers. As an emerging discipline, interpretations of Social CRM vary, but the most frequently quoted definition is from Paul Greenberg:

Social CRM is a philosophy and a business strategy, supported by a technology platform, business rules, workflow, processes and social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted and transparent business environment. It's the company's response to the customer's ownership of the conversation.

Social CRM is often used as a synonym for Social Media Monitoring, where organisations watch services like Facebook

Facebook

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

, Twitter

Twitter

Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...

 and LinkedIn

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a business-related social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. , LinkedIn reports more than 120 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The site is available in English, French,...

 for relevant mentions of their product and brand and react accordingly. However, this is too narrow an interpretation, as Social CRM also includes customer communities managed by the organisation themselves.

Applications of Social CRM

Social CRM has applications in marketing, customer service and sales, including:

• peer-to-peer customer support
• idea management
• market research
• product launch
• brand reputation management

Altimeter Group and Gartner

Gartner

Gartner, Inc. is an information technology research and advisory firm headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, United States. It was known as GartnerGroup until 2001....

have published research identifying common use cases for Social CRM.