It's impossible these days to stay connected with customers and employees without a myriad of tools: email, calendar apps, social networks, Skype, wiki's, project management, CRM systems, etc. While you can survive with all of these tools, they make building and nurturing relationships a headache, because they leave business contacts, communication and activities scattered all over the place. None of the data is well connected, and social intelligence is absent.

This is why social businesses need to leverage the power of socially enabled software platforms. These tools unify customer communication and provide businesses with a 360-degree view of all your customer interactions. They provide deeper insight into who your customers are -- as individuals and en masse. As a business professional, you can tap this knowledge to find ways to connect and engage on a personal level.

Social CRM tools also help companies better collaborate and bubble up internal ideas that would have otherwise never seen the light. They help companies centralize their activities around their constituency's feedback, be it from customers, prospects, influencers, or partners.

Social CRM is the glue that will help your business become a true social business.

Jon Ferrara is founder and CEO of . A social entrepreneur at heart, Jon Ferrara founded GoldMine Software in 1989, which helped pioneer the entire Sales Force Automation (SFA) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) market.