Maturity and Social Media: You'll Be Social (Soon)

For the rest of the June 2009 issue of CRM magazine — The Social Media Issue — please click here.

The digital edition of the issue can be found here — the Social Media Maturity Model spreads across pages 22 and 23 — 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.)

Take a deep breath, because this is where things get interesting.

Five years ago, in CRM’s January 2004 issue, we presented what the customer-centric company should look like. By now, you should be well versed in the concept — in fact, we’re ready to ask you to move beyond it.

We’ve put the core of that 2004 graphic — we’ll call it CRM 101 — at the center of this one. Each of the three surrounding concentric bands represents a time frame — today, three years from now, and five years from now — and describes how leading-edge organizations might embrace social media in each.

In the spirit of social, we opened up the design of this chart to outside sources; it’s impossible to achieve unanimity, so we aimed for consensus. We openly reference the work of others, as transparency dictates. (The listed sources shouldn’t be held responsible for these findings, but they have our gratitude for their input and insights.)

Some people call this CRM 2.0, some call it social CRM — but the terminology isn’t the point. What matters is your engagement, and your commitment to advancing your knowledge of and familiarity with the powerful tools and technologies available today and coming tomorrow.

There’s more information in this graphic than we had space to describe in print, so for more information, please visit our #303030 Project of 30 Posts, 30 People, 30 Days, in which the industry's top thinkers are spending the month discussing, dissecting, and developing this Social Media Maturity Model.

We expect to hear from you, and we expect this graphic to be a living, breathing document that evolves over time, just as CRM always has. —The Editors of CRM Magazine

Every month, CRM magazine covers the customer relationship management industry and beyond. To subscribe, please visit http://www.destinationcrm.com/subscribe/.

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