Brent's Social CRM Blog

The Big RT - How I Benefited More On Twitter By Saying Nothing

It may be hard for some to believe, but I am a seriously introverted individual. And I've been one as far back as I can remember. Which is why I often ask myself what would I be doing professionally if this stuff hadn't come along. Maybe still coding, or....gulp, some form of accounting... cue the Whodini's Haunted House of Rock music on that one.

But the power of social networking and media allows guys like me to share my thoughts and experiences in such a way that I'd never be able to do any other way. But sometimes the introvert in me says "shut up - you're talking too much about yourself", and "who cares what you think". Well, because I grew up watching Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy, there are a few adjectives I had to omit from my introverted quotes.

Anyway I was in one of those really introverted moods yesterday, probably because I've been doing a lot of speaking lately. And while every group I've been fortunate enough to speak to has been great, I knew an introtack (introvert attack) was coming on. So I decided to pull a Larry Hagman, kind of...

For those too young to remember, Larry Hagman was J.R. Ewing on the 70s/80s night time soap Dallas. Yeah I know he was also Major Tony Nelson on I Dream of Jeannie, but that was a little before my time, although I did love the re-runs...mostly for Barabara Eden though. One thing I read about Hagman was that he refuses to speak one day a week, to test his self-discipline. Well I really can't go to those lengths, but I thought I'd do something a little like that with Twitter. I decided instead of using Twitter the way I normally do, I decided to just do nothing but RT (retweet) what others were tweeting about all yesterday. I didn't offer any of my own thoughts or opinions, just RT the good stuff I saw others putting out there.

I used the #rttuesday tag for all of my public tweets yesterday. You can check out the stuff I RT'd by clicking here. Here are a few things I learned yesterday while doing the The Big RT:

• I learned that there was something called The Big RT by @sbosm (Smart Brief on Social Media). And that I was yesterday's Big RT for retweeting FranchiseKing Joel Libava's great post on how the Business.gov site is a must-use resource for small biz types. The best part of it for me is reading Joel's take on Business.gov and exploring it for myself. But I also am glad to learn about SBoSM and their efforts to share great information - one Big RT at a time.
• I learned that the quality of conversation going on with the #scrm (Social CRM) tag is awesome. I figured it was, but there's no doubt for me now. I created the tag a while back, but it's gone WAY beyond my expectations for it. In fact I really didn't have any expectations, I just wanted to make it easier to keep track of social crm conversations on Twitter. It was easy to do back then, because there weren't many conversations to track. But thanks to the likes of @prem_k (orignally known as @scorpfromhell), @mjayliebs, @ekolsky, @JohnFMoore @CRMStrategies and hundreds of others, this has got to be the best realtime source of social crm content and conversations out there - exclamation point! Many of the best RT's from yesterday came from this group.
• I learned that I know a lot of smart people who appreciate good information, wherever it comes from. Many of my RTs were RT'd themselves, which shows people are generous with information they respect and find interesting.

I think the most important thing I learned is that it's very important to take time to REALLY listen to what's going on out there - Social CRM lesson #1! I do a good bit of RTing in general, but yesterday I really paid attention to the RTs, which allowed me to learn some great stuff from great folks - learning more about folks I already knew (like John Lawson aka @Colderice) and some I didn't really know(like Michael Winn, aka @Tally Digital Biz). Yeah I could have auto-RT'd, but I wanted to really take in the info, and it was time well spent. And I can definitely see doing #RTTuesday again. It just goes to show you good things come to those who shut up and listen. But let me end with, what else, an RT from Dori DeCarlo, aka Dori_S1_Bags:

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Social CRM for the Small Biz Crowd with BatchBlue CEO Pamela O'hara

Social CRM has got to be one of the most talked about areas in CRM today. And a great deal of the focus at the enterprise level in #scrm (Twitter speak) is around the area of customer service. Being able to use Twitter as another channel to service customer requests and issues has proved to be a great move for companies like Dell, Comcast and many other heavy hitters. This works not only as another way to communicate with customers to solve their issues, but great service performed in plain sight of a growing social media audience can also double as a great indirect sales tool when happy customers tweet and re-tweet about their experiences with you.

Using social CRM to deepen relationships with current customers makes a great deal of sense, particularly in this rough economy. We all understand it's less expensive to keep customers than to acquire new ones. So the big boys focusing their Social CRM efforts on service and support should bring them the best bang for their buck. Small businesses trying to get off the ground are in a totally different universe. They are unknown and don't have enough customers to begin with. And Social CRM offers them a way to "win friends and influence people" on the way to hopefully turning clicks into customers. That is the number one goal for a majority of the small businesses I've come across over the past few years.

A company totally focused on the social CRM needs of small businesses is BatchBlue. BatchBlue's service, BatchBook, is a Saas-based CRM application that has built in social media/networking functionality (including Twitter integration) into the more traditional areas of customer relationship management. They've also built interesting partnerships with other small biz application vendors like MailChimp, Shoeboxed and others to form The Small Business Web alliance.

BatchBlue President Pamela O'Hara recently visited Atlanta and stopped by the studio to record a conversation for Technology For Business Sake. She shared her definition of social CRM and what it means for small business. She also talked about how BatchBlue is using social media to help small businesses get together and share information every Tuesday nights on Twitter via their SBBuzz chat sessions. Pamela also talks about the importance of having the BatchBook service integrate with other business applications to make it easier for small businesses to get the most out of using technology.

Check out the conversation below or download it here:

Technorati : #sbbuzz, batchblue, small business, social crm
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Abraham Lincoln's 269 Word Response to the Character of Our Content

Short and sweet on this one, just like Honest Abe did.

For my monthly column over at Inc.'s technology site I wrote something a little different than usual - The Character of Our Content. I thought of this because I get asked quite a bit about how much content is required to catch people's attention on the web. Or how long should posts be, how many times should I post, do I need funny pictures and videos? Many people focus on the mechanics of content automation and distribution. Others on worry more about the icing than they do the cake. Still others get discouraged because they perceive the investment in time will be too great.

But I really believe that the #1 most important thing in building your web cred, winning friends and influencing today's social customer is quality. It can be long or short, video or audio, daily or monthly, just make it good. And make it true to who you are and what you do.

And one of the absolute best examples of quality having an immeasurable impact in a few words is Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Here it is below in its entirety, all 269 words:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate...we can not consecrate...we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us-that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion-that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government: of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Short, sweet, powerful and everlasting... in under 300 words. Quality will outlast quantity every time. It helps those looking to find the content of our true character. So take a lesson from Abe the next time you're thinking about this stuff.

Technorati : abraham lincoln, gettysburg address, inc.com, social crm, social media
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CRM Playaz - The Boyz Are Back In Town

It's been along time, we shouldn't have left you....but we're back - we being Paul Greenberg and I as The CRM Playaz. But there's a new place to check us out - CRMPLAYAZ.COM.

The new site is powered by our friends at Hubspot.com. These guys not only make a great internet marketing platform for the SMB crowd, but they are some cool folks. Just check out the Baby Got Leads video they put only a few days ago, that already has over 10K views:

These guys get it, although they were doing the Thriller dance routines in the video to Sir Mix-a-lot. But why didn't I see Brian Halligan, Dharmesh Shah or Mike Volpe in there? Or was that them hiding in the back?  We'll get answers to that when we get them on the C-Level Smackdown. That's right, just because you're a show sponsor doesn't mean you can't get smacked around when you come on the show...so be ready.

We're still building out the site, but we'll have it together shortly. And we'll be looking for folks to do some blogging on the Playaz blog, so give me a shout if you're interested.

While you are able to listen to the latest show over at the site (and get the show write-up), you can check it out here to find out why Paul Greenberg, in addition to being the Walt Whitman of CRM, is now also the Martin Luther of CRM.  We also have a little fun at the expense of CRM magazine's editor-extraordinaire Josh Weinberger - whom we both really like!  And we bask in the afterglow of the Rockstars of CRM event.  Check it out here:

Oh yeah a BIG thanks goes out to Radian6's Bob Beaton for designing our new logo. We really love it.

Well, we're back....sorry folks.

Can Social CRM Help Drive Demand in an Demanding Market?

I recently had the pleasure of doing a Q&A with Augie Ray on his Experience blog. It was on how Social CRM can drive demand in a hyper-connected world. Augie hit me up with some great questions, which were helpful to me as I'm gearing up to participate in a free webcast next week organized by The Customer Collective. The subject is pretty timely - How to Drive Demand in a Demanding Market. Now at the beginning of the year I participated in a webinar on how CRM could help sales initiatives in a down economy. Six months later, as we slog our way through one of the worst economic years in recent memory, this topic may be even more important.

The focus of the webinar is to talk about how to improve your sales effectiveness in not only a tough market, but also a changing market... with customers whose expectations for engagement are, well, changing . While this is not a Social CRM event, I'm excited to be able to talk about its impact in this area. I'm also excited to be joined on the panel by:

• Dave Brock - President and CEO of Partners in Excellence
• David Bonnette - Group Vice President of Oracle's North American CRM Sales Organization

The webcast will be moderated by Robin Carey, Co-founder and CEO of Social Media Today.

A few questions I know we'll be covering include:

• How can I, as a salesperson, create compelling content or an unassailable offer that will get me leads?
• How can I be more creative in the way that I approach a relationship with a buyer?
• How can I spend less time on paperwork and more on building relationships?
• How does this new sales environment offer some strong advantages for inside sales?
• Are inside sales organizations using these new sales tools effectively and if so, how?
• How about establishing trust with these new tools and strategies? Is trust more important than ever?
• Is transparency the same as trust? And will salespeople, who are usually competitive with each other, embrace transparency and why?

Here are the details:

Title: Driving Demand in a Demanding Market

Date/Time: July 15 1 PM PST / 4 PM EST

Registration Link: Click here

Come join us if you can.

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