Do you have what you need for a social support solution? Get a quick look at the 5 key elements of a successful social support solution...

1. 5 Must Haves for Social
Support
Aug 2011

2. Social Support
Social support—the point at which online customer
communities, social networks, and traditional
customer service meet—is growing up.
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3. Customers are changing…
Social customers are
impatient, demanding and
fickle. To engage them in a
real way, brands must:
▪ build their own social
presence ,and
▪ reach out across the larger
social web
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4. 5 Must Haves for a
Successful Social
Support Solution
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5. 1. An Online Community
An online community is the heart of a social support solution—a living business tool
that that gets social customers engaged with the brand and each other. Online
communities help brands to get social customers to trust each other, help each other
and advocate for your brand.
Community is at the heart of all social customer solutions because the community is
the means by which customers become brand citizens.
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6. 2. Reputation management
The ability to identify and cultivate those who will amplify your brand message—your
advocates, influencers and superfans—is crucial.
A reputation management system enables content consumers (and there are way more
of them than content creators) to separate the useful from the non-useful and find the
trustworthy.
Networks like Yelp and eBay thrive on user reputation. A strong reputation builds trust
among the community members and makes each social customer more influential.
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7. 3. Social Web Integration
The most successful social brands today are not shy—they’re diving headlong into
social customer conversations with gusto. They listen, acknowledge, respond, reward,
explore and engage their social customers wherever they are—in online communities,
on Facebook and Twitter, and through mobile devices.
And they’re tapping a gold mine of business intelligence—spontaneous, unsolicited
market feedback. And they’re using it to meet customer needs, improve satisfaction,
build long term customer loyalty and maximize customer lifetime value.
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8. 4. CRM Integration
Simply showing up and listening is not enough. Successful social support systems are
based on many ties from the social web deep into the company’s business operations.
All parts of the enterprise need to interface with social customers.
Today’s most competitive brands are not simply capturing marketing feedback, but
leveraging it across the business. They’re folding all the valuable data they glean from
social media into their operations, knowledge stores, sales prospecting, and marketing
automation tools.
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9. 5. Actionable Analytics
The social web is a world at warp speed. Companies must constantly iterate on their
social engagement practices, try new strategies and learn from both their successes
and failures.
Solid analytics are essential for keeping all stakeholders dialed in. Access to great
information keeps the team nimble and responsive—giving them huge competitive
advantage.
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10. About Lithium
Find us on the Social Web
The Lithium Social Customer Suite helps great
companies turn social customer passion into marketing, Follow us on Twitter
product development, and customer service assets.
Find us on Facebook
The Lithium Social Customer Suite offers complete Follow Us on LinkedIn
social monitoring, a comprehensive community platform, Join the Lithosphere
and actionable analytics across millions of blogs, forums,
and social networking sites.
For market leaders such as Best Buy, AT&T, Research In Additional Resources
Motion Limited (RIM), Univision, and PayPal, Lithium is Subscribe to SocialMatters
the leading provider of social customer solutions that
deliver real business results. Lithium Resources
Lithium News & Events
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11. why Lithium?
Deep Social Social
Engagement Science Success
Great experiences for your Rich data for analysis, Driving real business
most passionate contributors— benchmarking, and optimizing outcomes.
your superfans. your social investments.
www.lithium.com. 11

12. recognized leadership
Lithium is Number 1 in:
▪ Current offering
▪ Features
▪ Strategy
▪ Clients
November 2010 “The Forrester Wave™: Community Platforms, Q4
2010”
www.lithium.com. 12

13. Lithium Resources
▪ Social Support with Online Communities Whitepaper
▪ Gartner Magic Quadrant for Social CRM Q3 2011
▪ Forrester Wave for Community Platforms Q4 2010
▪ The Lithium Social Customer Suite
• Lithium Community Platforms
• Lithium Social Media Monitoring
• Lithium Customer Intelligence Center
• LevelUp for Facebook
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