Dreamforce provides a visual spectacle that takes over the city of San Francisco for an entire week. Among the litany of jumbo screens, stages, lounges, and dancing mascots, one piece of real estate sticks out from the rest: the Salesforce Social Media Command Center. This hub of all things social, is in a league of its own.

It is little wonder then that a large group of eager marketers and salesforce users packed into a Dreamforce conference room on Tuesday to hear from salesforce.com manager of social engagement, Anna Eschenburg, as she gave a rare look behind the scenes of the Dreamforce command center. Here are the takeaways

Why a Command Center?

Eschenburg started her presentation by answering one of the most frequently asked questions about social media command centers: are they necessary? The average brand takes six hours to respond to social messages, if they respond at all. For a brand like salesforce, that racks up tens of thousands of mentions a day, which is a staggering number of unanswered conversations. During events like Dreamforce, that number can swell to 200,00 mentions a week. Responding to that scale of engagement requires a dedicated nerve center and staff.

In addition to engaging outside the company, salesforce has also been able to break down silos between departments with a unified social strategy that delivers value across the organization, from support to sales. As an added bonus, the full time social media command center provides an ideal location to host and inspire prospects and customers.

How to Get Started

Salesforce divides their command center strategy into the three focus areas of people, process, and technology, and provided some insight into how they excel at each:

  1. People: Staffing the command center with a dedicated team has been essential to Salesforce’s command center success, says Eschenburg. The need for well defined responsibilities and expectations are crucial to building and sustaining a serious social initiative like a command center, but should be tailored to your company size and situation.
  2. Process: While a fast-paced environment, it is incredibly important to have well defined processes and workflows for social media situations. Your teams and departments should be on the same page and be able to respond or route any situation with confidence.
  3. Technology: Having the right technology is a key piece of the command center equation. Investing in a social listening platform like Radian6 can turn the proverbial firehose of information flowing from social into a tailored and relevant stream of data.

Lessons Learned

Salesforce has clearly established itself as a leader in the new field of social media command centers, but Eschenburg was quick to admit that it has been a learning process. When asked for the lessons learned, she says to keep things simple. Don’t overextend yourself trying to cover the entire social media ecosystem. Be strategic in your approach and receive top-down support.

While your company may not need the Starship Enterprise-esque command center seen at dreamforce, establishing a permanent command post for your social engagement is becoming crucial for every organization.

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