Graeme Foux, chief executive of Knexus, recently published a piece in the Financial Times (News - Alert) noting that "Social CRM has emerged from the shifting balance of power between organizations and their customers."

He observed that "social networks, blogs and online communities have enabled people to connect easily and quickly with like-minded individuals and groups to share interests."

And Foux correctly diagnoses one effect of this: "The impact has been to cut organizations out of the loop, losing control of the customer relationship. Consumers have tasted freedom to connect, share and talk, benefiting from more timely, relevant and trusted interactions."

In other words, customers can now get together on their own. This sends chills down the spines of certain firms. As it probably well should.

Blogger Lauren from Radian6, identifies another critical function of social CRM - revitalizing your customers.

"While online behavior is not indicative of your entire customer base, any insights your organization can add to its existing customer database, will enrich analysis of trends and purchase behaviors that will help your organization better connect with existing customers," she writes.

Lauren identifies three considerations to companies looking to put social CRM to such good use, the following is excerpted from her more full treatment:

Relevance. Maintaining customers and propelling them to have repeat interactions with your company is more science than art. Those catchy phrases and colors on marketing materials may intrigue a customer, but do not always incite action.

Participation. Ask for feedback - social CRM is almost custom-built for this. Inquire about the activity of your customers on social media channels while determining the strength of their brand affiliation. If you have a traditional customer database, match up your survey results with existing customer profiles and develop communication and marketing strategies based on a deeper dive into those customer buying behaviors.

Rinse and Repeat. So often, organizations build metrics to measure data at an overall level for use in driving larger business decisions while deeper analytics are not being used to maintain current customers or define and bring back dormant customers. One contact is not enough. Test different combinations of insights gleaned from observed social media channel trends and survey results to find out what motivates your customers.