Crowd wisdom in social media circles says, in today’s world, the customer owns the relationship because of the power of social media to shape corporate agendas.

There’s a problem with that sentiment though, because it creates an inequality in a relationship where one party holds more power than the other.

Click the podcast to hear more.

Here’s an exerpt for Should You Become a Social Business, the first article.

If you are in business today you can't help but be inundated by the plethora of information about the social enterprise and Social CRM. Social pundits send the message deploying social is a "must have" for businesses.

The big question for business leaders, though, is whether social media will help them solve their business problems. And if so, then the question becomes one of how to combine traditional business methods with social media to do so.

[…] Should your company adopt the model? The short answer is…maybe.

Go on, read the article for more.

P.S. The second article should be out tomorrow.

Social business, and supporting SCRM strategies, allow us to once again emulate the human approach. It’s not about adding a human touch to your business. Instead, it’s about being human.

In the process, social business unleashes the creative processes of real people, incorporating normal right- and left-brained processes, rather than force-fitting us solely into a left-brained, transactional mold.

It means adding “relationship” into CRM in the way it was originally intended. It means gaining valuable and insightful information about what’s really important to people, as well as about how they really make decisions, do work, and live their lives.

Today’s podcast with Dr. Natalie delves into how social data is valuable to companies – and how companies can use it for competitive gain.

And we delve into how social business is moving CRM to where it’s really meant to be – and why moving to true CRM is important to companies.

(If you want to watch/listen to the full discussion rather than an excerpt, you can download the file here. Select Episode 1 - The Proimse of Social CRM, part 1.)

Now, here is today's podcast...

We discuss how customer engagement is valuable to companies.

(If you want to watch/listen to the full discussion rather than an excerpt, you can download the file here. Select Episode 1 - The Proimse of Social CRM, part 1.)

Now, here is today's podcast...

The podcast starts to lay the explanatory groundwork for what makes a social business.

(If you want to watch/listen to the full discussion rather than an excerpt, you can download the file here. Select Episode 1 - The Proimse of Social CRM, part 1.)

Now, here is today's podcast...

Our thanks to Focus.com for allowing us to replay excerpts from our 10-week Roundtable series on Simplifying Social Business. We based the Focus roundtables on our ebook series of the same name.

(If you want to watch/listen to the full discussion rather than an excerpt, you can download the file here. Select Episode 1 - The Proimse of Social CRM, part 1.)

Now, here is today's podcast...

Larger companies might not struggle as much with the answer because of their more extensive resources. But for small- to medium-sized companies, getting the answer right is of paramount importance because of the demand on more limited resources.

I advise my clients to start by doing a SWOT (Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis.

This valuable insight can help you initially prioritize among competing initiatives. You can undertake a SWOT analysis before building a detailed business case for an initiative. And it has the advantage of providing information that can later be used in the construction of the business case.

Here are example questions you can ask to build the SWOT analysis: