Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERP) empower businesses to connect their core areas (sales, accounting, finance, marketing, and project management, among others) and unify information across departments. However, social media is one part of the businesses we don’t often see integrated into ERPs. So what opportunities are there for Social ERPs, and why haven’t we seen more adoption?
Enhanced Engagement Opportunities
ERP’s data can enhance social media efforts with clients, partners, and the wider community. Social media staff can access primary business data to help identify content opportunities, provide better client support, and identify improvement areas. For example, a Software-as-a-Service company can congratulate a client on Twitter for making an upgrade or reaching a business goal. This data lives on the ERP, and can unlock opportunities.
Added Transparency
ERPs can un-silo social media data and make it available to the enterprise. Raw social media campaign performance data often does not leave the silo of the paid media or social team. Making this data available to other stakeholders can empower them to better cross-analyze the impact of those social media efforts on sales, consumer perception, and other business metrics. This added transparency in social media opens up collaboration and brings the social team closer to other business units.
But…
One big reason why social media has not fully integrated with ERP systems is the sheer cost and complexity of these. Even though cloud computing has made these systems more accessible to more businesses, the truth is that it is still out of reach to most companies. Although social media has been adopted at scale, ERPs are not there yet. Instead, most opt for CRM platforms like Hubspot and Salesforce or project management platforms such as Asana, Trello, and Monday, whose APIs enable much more cross-collaboration.
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