An analysis of developed system (based on the paper)

Based on this paper:

Metrics have a big role in determining the success of social media in customer relationship management. Clients of social media adoption for their businesses seek out metrics that identify an organization’s progress in achieving objectives similar to those in the traditional customer relationship management space, such as increase customer retention, increase revenue, and increase customer satisfaction. Activity is one of the easiest things to measure on social media. More than eighty percent of clients use activity metrics to measure and figure out how successful they have been with social media for customer relationship management. These metrics are also very helpful during the early stages of a social media program because they provide information of uptake that customer service, marketing, and sales are concerned with. However, organizations need to focus on certain metrics to meet their goals and objectives to be successful. This is because social initiatives are not focused cross-customer relationship management, but rather on just sales, marketing, or customer service. Customer service organizations that are more concerned with cost reductions might look at the average handling time for a social media inquiry and at ways to reduce time and cost. On the other hand, the marketing and sales departments might be more concerned with other aspects. The marketing department might want to spent extra time with clients to increase engagement and discover revenue generating opportunities and they would measure engagement rate. The sales department would focus on metrics that present the revenue generating opportunities and measure the number of leads gained through social media. Just because one metric reflects high business performance for one organization or department, does not mean it will necessarily mean the same thing for another.  

When one thinks of Rolex they usually think of a luxury watch that their grandparents or parents might possess. The watch company was created 112 years ago back in 1905. The company has seen enormous success throughout the century and has defined itself as one of the most or the most successful watch companies in the world. Mostly everyone knows what the watch is and what is represents so the question arises why need more marketing for it? The company for the past century has only made small adjustments with their marketing tactics and it has not seem to interfere with their sales. Finally, in 2014 Rolex took a big leap of faith by creating their first social media page on Facebook. When a reporter asked the Rolex spokesperson why they chose to participate in social media he said, “Creating buzz is not the intent. We craft our content thoughtfully, privilege quality over quantity, talk only when we have something to say and when we feel it's right”. After more research I found that Rolex delayed the process of joining social media because they wanted to know everything about social marketing before they entered. There was no reason to dive right into social media at the beginning because they already owned the marketplace.

Rolex is a famous Swiss luxury watchmaker, which pursue high-impact and difficult-to-measure metrics. Every attempt that Rolex makes to quantify social media’s impact on CRM in the organization. There are four metrics which is most appropriate for Rolex company. Rolex’s products have not changed much, with their social marketing strategies they are looking to do projects that create an impact and get their company noticed. For this reason, Rolex looks to using social metrics such as Volume and Mentions, Retweets/Shares/Likes, impressions, and reach. Volume and Mentions look at the amount of times the company is mentioned in some capacity. Volume and Mentions are monitored by Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service, they have a low degree of business impact, are easy to measure, and are measured by how many times a user mentions the business. Retweets, Shares, and Likes to show what specifically the customer is interested in or likes about the company it can provide information about who is looking at the company.  Retweets, Shares and Likes are used by marketing and have a low impact on business, they are easy to measure as they can see who does it. Impression is the number of times material by the company is seen, this can be the number of times a user clicks on a picture or video, or reads an article about the company or product. Impressions have a low impact on business, are easy to measure, used by marketers, and can be displayed quantitatively. Reach is the number of people who see the content put out by a company, it can be looked upon as a view count. Reach has a low impact on business, is easy to measure, used by marketers, and can be viewed quantitatively.

Rolex recently decided to go into a revitalization phase where it started engaging in social media. Their goal for using social media was not create a buzz but to inform people of their brand and products. Rolex does not post ads on its social media, it uses social listening, by utilizing social metrics such as Volume/Mentions, Retweets/Shares/likes, impressions, and reach to find out what people are saying about Rolex. Rolex uses Volume and Mentions to find where interested users are, they look for mentions of the brand and products across social platforms to see where people are talking about them. They use retweets, shares, and likes on social media sites like twitter and facebook to see more specifically what people like or are looking at in their brand and product lines. Impressions are looking at what and how many people are looking at the media they put out, Rolex wants to make sure when they make a video or ad that they spend a lot of money on that people are actually seeing it and not being put aside.. Reach is looking at the size of the following of the organization, this being the number of people who have watched their videos they put up on youtube, the numbers of followers on facebook or twitter. An example of how Rolex used all of these metrics was back in 2014, Rolex’s social media team noticed that they were getting a lot of mentions on facebook. Many users were starting dialogues about why the number 4 in roman numeral IV was represented as IIII. Rolex noticing that people were beginning to talk about this released a short documentary style video explaining their use of the 4. It was a big hit for them that had gotten over 119,000 likes, more than anything that they had posted before.

Rolex social media marketing is unlike millions of other marketing strategies. Rolex does not attempt to target customers with its use of social media marketing, instead it is trying to create a conversation and exemplify their place in history. Rolex does not post pictures on content with the message being “Buy me! Buy me!”, it instead portrays the message of the values of the company. For example; Rolex started its own YouTube channel where instead of posting videos of watches, the channel would post documentaries of people reaching their dreams. In several of the videos the watch is not even mentioned, but instead just shows the values of Rolex. Rolex spokesperson told the magazine company Mashable, “Our communication on social media enables a better understanding of the brand, its universe, and its values”. There is some basis behind Rolex’s social media to sell its products, but its focus is to expand their presence and get people interested in understanding the stories that are behind their products.