Brent's Social CRM Blog

Social CRM, Superstar?

Who could have seen this coming? I know I didn't back in 2007. I mean, it hasn't been that long ago when CRM was still considered a 4-letter word. But here I am sitting in Boston about to go on stage with the likes of Chris Brogan, Paul Greenberg, Michael Thomas and Frank Eliason? To talk about Social CRM? And we're being called.... Rock Stars???

I can't speak for anybody else here, but I'm no Prince. Who am I kidding, I'm not even Milli Vanilli. But it's true, thanks to the fine folks at Radian6. Social CRM has come a LONG way in a relatively short time. Don't get me wrong, we're still in the infancy stages, but it's really on the map and interest in this area seems to be growing exponentially. Which is why it was kind of ironic that I only heard CRM mentioned once during the first day of the Enterprise 2.0 conference also going on here this week. But the one who mentioned it was Jascha Franklin-Hodge of Blue State Digital, the technology folks behind BarackObama.com and MyBarackObama.com. In fact he said that CRM was the foundation for much of their social media success... not to mention the success of a little project I (and my colleague David Bullock) like to call Barack 2.0.

The campaign's success not only raised the interest in social media that drove Oprah (and others) to Twitter, but I think it's also a key driver in the interest in social CRM. And if you are even just a little curious about this stuff, maybe you should join me and the other Rockstars of Social CRM tonight at 8pm ET for a fun conversation with a great group of people.

To join in the festivities use this link: http://radian6rockstars.eventbrite.com/.

I'm still prepping for tonight's event. Check out my preparation materials:

Technorati : chris brogan, frank eliason, michael thomas, paul greenberg, prince, radian6, run dmc, rush, social crm
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Jigsaw hosts Barack 2.0 Webinar today

I'm in Boston for tonight's Rockstars of Social CRM event (more on that later today). But before that I'm doing a Barack 2.0 webinar hosted by the fine folks at Jigsaw.com. It's at 1pm ET/ 10am PT today. And yes, it's free! If you're interested you can use the link below to check it out:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/587358944

Technorati : barack 2.0. jigsaw, social crm, social media
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A moment of your time for a chance to win a $500 American Express Gift Card

Over the past few months there have been some interesting studies focused on small business and how they are coping in this tough economy. Among them are the Network Solutions Small Business Success Index (http://growsmartbusiness.com/), and Microsoft's SMB Insights report. I've written about the findings in both of these reports over on the American Express OPEN blog - A Tale of Two Studies and Tech Savvy SMBs Will Lead the Way. I've also had executives from both companies on Technology For Business Sake (TFBS) to go "inside the numbers" a bit:

Network Solutions CEO Roy Dunbar on Small Business Success Index

Microsoft VP of Solution Partners and ISVs Ross Brown on Microsoft SMB Insights report

I think this kind of information can be of great importance to small businesses looking to compete, survive and thrive today. Which is why I am working with small business experts Anita Campbell (publisher of SmallBizTrends.com) and Ramon Ray (publisher of SmallBizTechnology.com) to help research firm Hurwitz & Associates on a new study. We need your input about the types of marketing tools you use and plan to use to help your business survive and thrive in these challenging economic times. The results from the survey will be used to develop a series of three whitepapers on this topic.

Please take a few minutes to provide us with your valuable insights and opinions. You can complete the survey online in about 15 minutes.

What's in it for you?

In return for completing this survey, we will send you copies of the three papers that summarize the key findings of the survey, and enter you in a drawing to win one of the following prizes:

• Grand Prize: $500 American Express Gift Card
• $50 American Express Gift Cards for ten lucky survey participants

Your individual survey responses are completely confidential; neither your name nor your company's name will be associated with your answers. Any responses you provide will be used only in combination with those of other survey respondents.

To participate, click on the link below:

www.protus.com/smbquest

Thank you for your help. Your contribution to the success of this survey is greatly appreciated!

Technorati : american express gift card, small business survey
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Microsoft Study Shows Tech-Savvy SMBs Will Help Spur Economic Recovery

I've been digging into some great small business studies that have come out over the last several weeks. Network Solutions recently unveiled the small business study they did with the University of Maryland, and Intuit released the latest installment in their Future of Small Business study. Both of these studies are must reads if your serious about being in business for a while.

Another must read study comes from Microsoft with respect to the impact technology can have on the success of small and mid-size businesses (SMBs), and the impact technology-savvy SMBs can have on stimulating our economy. In fact SMB IT spend is growing at more than ten times the rate of worldwide IT spend, according to the report.

Most Demanded Productivity Tools (According to Microsoft Study)

I had a chance to speak with Ross Brown - Microsoft VP of Solution Partners & ISVs - about the report findings. Ross talks about the technology spending trends in the SMB community, the growing role of unified communications, and the increasing demand for mobile solutions and remote workers. Ross also touches on the growing interest in business intelligence and the ramifications it has on SMBs. And despite all the hype surrounding other areas of technology, he explains why the key technologies in 2009 are backup, IT consolidation and virtualization.

Key SMB Technologies in 2009

To hear the conversation with Ross click the player below, or download the mp3 file by clicking here.

Technorati : crm, microsoft, small business, unified communications
Del.icio.us : crm, microsoft, small business, unified communications

Charity Auction to Help Find A Cure for Breast Cancer

The conversations I have for Technology For Business $ake typically focus on hot technology topics small businesses should be aware of, with nationally known subject matter experts in those areas. But I recently recorded a different kind of conversation with my friend John Lawson. Some may know John more by his Twitter handle Colderice.

Besides being a good friend, John fits the profile of my typical guests, as he's an expert in ecommerce being both a certified eBay trainer and Platinum Seller with his 3rd Power Outlet online retail site. And John's Colderice.com blog is a one stop shop for information on eBay, Amazon, Paypal and all things ecommerce. Plus the video rants and podcast interviews are as entertaining as anything you'll find on the web.

So while I could talk to John about ecommerce and social media, which I still will do at some point, the focus of our conversation was on something much more important. John is in the middle of a week long charity auction to raise funds to find a cure for breast cancer. He calls it the "Chest to Save Breasts" auction, because John will wear the logo, phrase, slogan or anything (within reason) on the front of the t-shirt he will wear on stage at the upcoming Ecommerce Summit taking place June 3-4 here in Atlanta. John is one of the main organizers, as well as being one of the most popular personalities at the event, so the winner of the auction will not only be helping out a great cause, they'll also be getting some pretty nice exposure at a great conference.

John says that 100% of the proceeds from the auction will be going to the American Breast Cancer Foundation (ABCF). With ABCF being registered with Mission Fish, the trusted administrator of eBay's Giving Works program, the bidding is taking place on eBay. All you need to do if you're interested in supporting the cause and bidding is go to eBay.com and type in colderice into the search window at the top of the homepage - or just click here.

The auction will be ending on May 6th at 8pm, culminating with the Colderice-athon Ustream where you can catch John will do his best Jerry Lewis impersonation. For more information please go to http://www.colderice.com/charity. And if you're interested in more information on the Ecommerce Summit you can find it at http://www.ecommerce-summit.com. But for now click the player below to check out my conversation with John to hear why he's doing this auction, or download the mp3 here.

As someone who has lost a family member to breast cancer, I thank John for his efforts in putting all this together, and encourage you to help the cause if you can,

Del.icio.us : breast cancer, colderice, ebay, ecommerce summit
Technorati : breast cancer, colderice, ebay, ecommerce summit

Navigating the Web with Glue... Not On It!

A few weeks back I had a chance to speak with Alex Iskold, founder of AdaptiveBlue - the makers of Glue. Glue is a Firefox add-on that I think gets us closer to how we really want our Internet experience. Please feel free to check out my latest Inc.com column that goes into what Glue is and why I think it could be "the thing" we need.

Alex and I had a really interesting conversation where he shared his take on what the semantic web is and what it means to us. He also talks about how Glue brings the network(s) to the individual, allowing us to congregate, collaborate and communicate around things we're interested in - be it a movie, book, restaurant or anything else we're interested in.

As the amount of information (and people) continues to grow exponentially, the ramifications for this kind approach to social networking has the potential of presenting us with information in a much more efficient way. So check out the conversation with Alex below, or feel free to download the mp3 by clicking here.

Technorati : adaptiveblue, glue, semantic web, social networking
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TAG! But Are You Really It?

Remember that old kids game Tag? You know, where you hide from the people who are trying to find you so they can tag you and make you "it". So you'd run and hide and try your best not ever to be tagged and become "it". And as long and hard as people were looking for you, your aim was to never be found so you didn't have to be "it", and then have to go chasing them around.

Well folks, sometimes it feels like we're still trying our best not to be "it". Maybe not being "it" was cool when we were on the playground in grade school. But now, where the playing field is the web and the object of the "game" is to be successful in business, the last thing we want to do is go off and hide from people searching for the products and services we can give them

So how do we make it as easy as possible to become "it" now that we want to? Well, it's learning to play TAG. Not the kids game, but learning how to show up on Twitter and Google (TAG...get it?), and any other tool or site on the web where people are looking for answers to the challenges they are facing.

The graphic below taken from a recent Nielsen Online Global Index study shows that search is the number one business activity taking place. But time spent on social networking community sites is #4 with a bullet, moving past email.

 

On Wednesday April 29^th, I'm moderating a free webinar featuring three small business experts who will share their experience and expertise in building a successful, engaging business web presence.... and winning the adult version of TAG. These experts are:

· Anita Campbell, Editor-in-Chief of Small Business Trends

· Liz Strauss, Social web strategist and founder of SOBCon

· Mike Volpe, VP of Marketing for Hubspot

The goal of this event is to help small businesses learn how they can begin to show up in Google searches, in Twitter conversations, and anywhere else people are looking on the web for the help you can provide them. And we are looking to answer questions you may have in creating a highly effective web presence. Please leave any questions you may have here in the comments section, and we'll try to answer as many of them as we possibly can.

Here are all the details:

Title: Passing the TAG (Twitter & Google) Test: Connecting with Socially-Empowered Customers in 2009

Date: Wednesday, April 29^th

Time: 1pm Eastern, Noon Central, 11am Mountain, 10am Pacific

Duration: 60 minutes

Registration link: http://ilinc.com/passthetagtest

While this is a free webinar, please sign up as soon as you can, as seating is limited. And don't forget to add your question for the panelists in the comment section below.

A BIG thanks to the great folks at iLinc for allowing us to use their web conferencing service to host this special webinar!

To learn more about this event, click on the player below (or download mp3 by clicking here) to check out the conversation I had with my friend and small business expert Anita Campbell:

Technorati : google, hubspot, linkedin, liz strauss, smallbiztrends, tag test, twitter
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Twitalyzer.com's Eric T. Peterson on Web Analytics

I recently had TFBS a conversation Ross Brown, Microsoft VP of Solutions Partners and ISVs, to discuss the results of a recent study they commissioned called the Microsoft 2009 SMB Insights Report (download the report pdf by clicking this link). I'll be posting that conversation shortly, but you can check out my latest American Express OPEN Forum post (Tech-Savvy SMBs Will Lead The Way) to get a few of my thoughts on the findings. Very interesting stuff!

According to the study, one of the areas that small businesses are investing pretty heavily in is business intelligence. And there's a growing interest in web analytics and how they can help us with our social media initiatives. Eric T. Perterson is one of the foremost experts in the area of web analytics, having written the book on demystifying web analytics. Additionally, he has created Twitalyzer.com - probably the best Twitter analytics site I've come across.

Eric joined me on TFBS to talk about where we are today with web analytics, the best ways to get started with it, and how Google Analytics is serving the needs of small businesses. Eric also talks about the impact of analytics on social media, particularly with respect to Twitter. He explains what Twitalyzer is and how it can be used to help determine your influence on Twitter. Eric also discusses how you can use Twitalyzer to grow your influence on the Twitter community, as well as understanding the influence of the people your engaging on Twitter.

You can check out the conversation by clicking the player below, or by clicking here to download the mp3 file.

Del.icio.us : eric t. peterson, google analytics, twitalyzer, web analytics
Technorati : eric t. peterson, google analytics, twitalyzer, web analytics

How to Use Social Media to Attract Customers - A Hubspot Joint

I'm pretty psyched for a number of reasons. I'm doing small business technology bootcamp at next month's Black Enterprise Entrepreneur's Conference. I did the same last year, when 1500 entrepreneurs attended. This year, even with all of the economic challenges they're expecting the same kind of crowd. And I just heard Spike Lee will be a keynote, so it would be very cool if I had a chance to meet him.

I'm also psyched because Paul Greenberg and I just "cut" the latest installment of the CRM Playaz. You can check it out over on Paul's ZDNet blog. We riff on a report that finds social media does not help B2B salespeople close deals. We also talk (badly) about celebrities on Twitter. But one thing we were happy to announce is our first sponsor - Hubspot.com. I've known these guys pretty much since their inception, which makes it special to see what they've accomplished over the past 2+ years creating their internet marketing platform. I've used Hubspot for Technology For Business Sake, and shortly we'll be putting up the CRM Playaz site on Hubspot as well. Thanks guys!

Speaking of Hubspot, they've invited me to participate in one of their free webinars tomorrow - How to Use Social Media to Attract Customers. I'll talk about how I've used social media, as well as how you can integrate it into a more traditional CRM strategy - in other words I'm talking Social CRM!

They have put on some great webinars in the past. You don't even have to take my word for it, just check out the Twitter stream of folks who signed up for this one:

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=hubspot+webinar

This has nothing to do with me, but everything to do with the kind of content these guys crank out on a consistent basis. So a big thanks to the Brian Halligan, Dharmesh Shah, Mike Volpe and "the crew" for inviting me to join them.

Here are the details:

Title: How to Use Social Media to Attract Customers

Date: Tuesday April 14th

Time: 2pm ET

Cost: Nada

Registration Link: http://bit.ly/hubreg

Hope to see you there!

Technorati : hubspot, social crm, social media, spike lee
Del.icio.us : hubspot, social crm, social media, spike lee

Is Your Customer's Call Really All THAT Important To You

Everyone is trying to keep hold of their customers for as long as they possibly can, especially now. Last month I moderated a panel on nurturing customer loyalty at the Small Business Summit, and also did a guest post on the 1to1 blog - So YOU Want to Improve MY Customer Experience.

In fact I praise Borders in that blog post for improving my experience with them, but then I had to turn around slap them on the latest episode of the CRM Playaz when they took away the very thing I praised them for. And Paul Greenberg talks about the negative experience he recently had with United Airlines, the airline he has loyally been flying for years.

So this is not the time to start messing around with customer service and expectations, In the immortal words of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - "Don't push me cuz I'm close to the edge, I'm trying not to lose my head...". There are too many ways for us as customers to show our discontent that go way beyond just not spending our hard-earned dollars. And nothing irritates us more than feeling like we're being taken advantage of by vendors, and especially by vendors who don't listen to us. Some don't even bother returning a good number of the 64 billion service calls we make.

Emily Yellin, a journalist who frequently writes for The New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek and other publications, knows all about our frustrations having written the new book Your Call Is (Not That) Important To Us. Emily and I recently had a fun conversation for TFBS about the book. She shares some of her personal experiences with bad customer service, and insights she gained from conversations with folks like Fedex CEO Fred Smith and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh. She also talks about the Customer Rage study, and the things that surprised her as she traveled throughout the world visiting call centers in places like Egypt and Argentina.

I'm still reading the book, but I've enjoyed what I've read so far. And I can tell Emily enjoyed writing it, because it comes across on the pages. She has fun with it, but still uncovers some really interesting things that give you insight into how companies really view customer service, from all levels in the organization - including the C-level of Fortune 500 companies. You can check out our conversation by clicking the player below, or by clicking on this link to download the mp3 file.

Let me say a special thanks to Emily for including a quote from one of my blog posts in her book. I would tell you what it is, but it would be better if you bought the book and found it for yourself!

Technorati : crm playaz, customer experience, customer service, emily yellin
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