Does CRM Software Adoption Improve When Employees Use Twitter?

One of the oldest chestnuts in the sales business involves marketing teams that fail to adopt CRM software because they simply cannot get used to the idea of "checking in" with a computer every few minutes. Those old-school sales pros prefer to keep their own checklists on paper or in their head, while their in-person and on-the-phone interactions with clients prevent them from developing CPU-friendly habits.

Unwittingly, social marketers have started to whittle away at that old excuse by encouraging sales professionals to spend more time on Twitter or Facebook. And, while critics of social networking often deride tweets and status updates as banal, there's a growing trend among sales professionals to spend more of their time celebrating accomplishments and calling out great clients on their real-time feeds.

Although some sales leaders have called this kind of usage a form of "social CRM," developers of advanced CRM applications have noticed an interesting correlation between teams that tweet and teams that get more out of their CRM software. Tweeting regularly encourages users to spend more time "checking in" on their computers. It's not a stretch to believe that this tethering gets sales professionals accustomed to checking in on their CRM software at the same time.

Some CRM software developers have encouraged faster adoption of their tools by embedding "tips and tricks" among their official tweets. Twitter streams from notable CRM software programmers and experts can help sales teams feel more at home with the technology, while developing stronger brand loyalty through support, service, and personal relationships between clients and company spokespersons.