The journey to engaged customer community: Evidential social CRM maturity model in Twitter

We investigate the company use of Twitter as a platform for social customer relations management (SCRM) to find that message type and follower growth follow an identifiable maturity model. Studying longitudinal Twitter data from 73 Standard and Poor's companies, we find that companies map into one of two distinct maturity stages as reflected in the content of company-generated messages. The first maturity stage consists of branding, where the focus is on customer acquisition up to a certain volume, at the expense of their engagement. The second is social care, where the focus is on retaining customers and increased engagement. We further find that companies have relatively little control over their maturity stage and that investing in social care in the first stage, aiming to increase engagement, is not effective. Proper understanding and recognition of the Twitter SCRM maturity model will allow companies to assess their methods and processes according to SCRM best practices.