Intelestream, a customer relationship management consulting firm, has published a whitepaper that outlines the concept of Social CRM in the context of small and medium sized businesses.

 

Entitled "Understanding and Harnessing the Power of Social CRM," the whitepaper provides a blueprint to understand and harness the power of Social CRM. According to company officials, it covers traditional CRM; social networking sites and opportunities; the differences between CRM and Social CRM.

 

In addition, it also discusses what organizations should consider, prepare for, and buy in order to maintain a competitive edge in the marketplace.

 

Today, social networking opportunities are growing at an alarming speed. However, it's seen that businesses are faltering under the pressures to keep up, noted company officials. If professionals are unprepared and do not know what to look for, navigating through social networking sites can be an "incredible" waste of time.

 

Company officials said that with both the potential to reward and devastate a company's brand and reputation, properly understanding and harnessing Social CRM can determine whether a business remains competitive or obsolete.

 

The decision to publish this whitepaper is a response to the confusion about this topic that has been mounting among SMBs professionals, said Stafford McKay, Jr., director of marketing at Intelestream (News - Alert).

 

"There is an absolute sea of information out there when it comes to Social Networking and Social CRM. Our goal is to break it down into practical terms," he said.

 

Chicago-based Intelestream offers open source CRM professional services. The company is the developer of intelecrm, an online CRM for SMBs. Also, it develops industry-specific verticals based on a CRM workflow.

 

Earlier this year in April, the company announced the addition of Twitter integration tool to intelecrm.

 

Check out more about this Whitepaper and others at Intelestream's archive.