2012 Resolutions We Wish Social Tool Providers Would Make

• Jan 4th, 2012
• Posted by JR Pelkola
• Posted in #2012, Social Tools

Around the office we use social tools whenever possible to help us manage client accounts and bring scale to our programs.  These range from startups to enterprise level software solutions, all providing their own set of strengths.  However, much like a doctor tackling an unknown disease with a cocktail of pills, we’re often forced to use a variety of tools to help us accomplish everything.

We’ve come to grips with the fact that no tool is going to fit perfectly with any program, but there are a few key items we seem to always be searching for.  Most of these items always seem to be on the “road map”, but it seems we’ve been asking about them forever.  We hope some of these tool providers are resolving to solve for these gaps in 2012:

• Real-time Facebook Data – Often, the tool providers aren’t completely to blame.  The fact is, Facebook makes it incredibly difficult to pull data from their system and only their tightest partners have unlimited API calls.  The trouble is there’s a mismatch between who gets the data and who’s good at managing the data.  For massive pages this delay becomes a serious issue.
  
• Collaborative Editorial Tools – Sure, you can draft, schedule, and approve content in most sCRM tools at this point, but that’s far from the elegant editorial experience that we know technology is capable of delivering.  We shouldn’t have to rely on desktop apps to really plan and collaborate on editorial content.  Where are the multiple views? Where is the merging of PR, Marketing, and product calendars?  It’s 2012, can we have an all-up communications overview already?!?!
  
• CRM integration – We know this is a big ask for 2012, but it seems like a few tools are on their way to making this happen.  This is going to take real collaboration between multiple tools.  We want to understand a customer’s complete relationship with a company, not just twitter conversations.  We need to become more sophisticated about how we communicate with customers and that requires a holistic view of all touch points including marketing channels, customer service, and social.

This past year saw the formation of our Social Technology Research team at SCG. The STR is tasked with researching, assessing, and bringing to bear for our clients the best tools and solutions in the social space. As SCG becomes a more integral part of the IPG Mediabrands family, that work will only increase, and the team will contiue their push to be the most-knowledgeable group of industy experts in the social tools space.