Brent's CRM Blog

Tales in Blogger Relationship Management - GoogleForce is in Full Effect

Kingsley Joseph over at Salesforce.com sent out an email this morning with links to a special blogger's page with information on the new Salesforce for Google Apps product that integrates features of Google Apps with features of SFDC. Now anyone who has read this blog over the years knows that I've been predicting GoogleForce for since late 2006, and then again when I was interviewed for CRM magazine at the end of last year. So I'm not going to dwell on the obvious - on how I think this combination makes entirely too much sense. I am planning to do check out the integrations this week, but in the mean time you may want to check out the following video that comes from the blogger's resource page:

I'll do a post on what I actually think of the integration lather this week. But this is another great lesson in BRM (Blogger Relationship Management). Here are a few of the key points:

• Setting up the special blogger's page with links to important information
• Emailing us with the heads up of the announcement
• including the movies in there
• offering to answer any questions we may have
• suggesting tags if we were to blog about the news
• recommendations for twittering and live blogging the webcast taking place this this afternoon

Coming off the heals of the second blogger call by Oracle last week, this is another sign that CRM vendors understand the value of communicating to the bloggers there customers and prospects check out.

Speaking of Oracle, maybe the rumor that they may buy Salesforce is just that, and that I may still have a shot at being right about GoogleForce.

Technorati : crm, google, productivity tools, salesforce
Del.icio.us : crm, google, productivity tools, salesforce

Who Should Be The Country's First Blog Czar?

Tim Berry, founder of business plan software company Palo Alto Software and avid blogger, posted an interesting article over at SmallBizTrends.com questioning if powerblogging could really kill us. I added my 2 cents with the following comment:

Brent Leary Says:
April 10th, 2008 at 9:52 am

Cool post Tim. I'd hate to think we're all putting our lives at risk doing this. I think we need to get the AMA to do a study on the health risks associated with the affects of powerblogging. Maybe have congress hold congressional hearings and call some of the leading bloggers to testify. I might even suggest the next president create a new cabinet post - The Blog Czar or possibly the Blogger General - to look out for us.

Who would make a good Blog Czar? Up for the job Tim?

Anita Campbell seems to like the term Blog Czar, while Tim favored the term Blogger General. I think Tim may be a fan of C. Everett Koop or something.....just kidding Tim. Having made both names up I like them both, so if a cabinet level position were to be added to represent the interest of us bloggers, what should that person be called? Better yet, who should it be??? Who knows, if the first CRM president is elected in November this cabinet position may just actually get created.

I figure this person has to understand blogging and bloggers, be able to stand up for our rights in the face of potential congressional hearings, and have to look decent in a uniform... that is if we go with the term Blogger General. That's asking for a whole lot. I need help on this one.

Anyways thanks Tim for coming up with this one. Tim also had some interesting things to say about blogging when he was on Technology For Business Sake a few months back. Check it out below:

Technorati : anita campbell, blogger relationship management, blogging, tim berry
Del.icio.us : anita campbell, blogger relationship management, blogging, tim berry

Blogger Relationship Management - Oracle Steps Up

This past Friday I participated in what I think may have been the first "blogger call" - as opposed to an analyst call - set up in the CRM industry. Anthony Lye, Oracle's senior vice president of CRM, invited a select group of bloggers to discuss a few developments the company is working on. The call was a little late in getting started and lasted about 20 minutes. And I can't write or comment on what was talked about until March 11th when Oracle makes the information public, but it should be of interest to anyone following the space or who is serious about CRM. What I can comment on is the fact that Oracle held the call in the first place. It's a good sign that Oracle gets the importance the industry blogosphere has with respect to holding important, inclusive conversations with CRM enthusiasts, practitioners, users and customers. Even if I had not been invited I'd feel that way. Because it shows Oracle is paying attention to things that their customers and prospects are involved with - using social media to participate in the conversation. It also shows a great respect for the bloggers, but an even greater respect for the CRM community in which their customers (current and future) look for guidance, information, and to be heard.

So I thank Anthony for putting this together and for inviting me to participate. It puts Oracle ahead in terms of BRM, at least in the CRM industry. Hopefully there will be more questions from the bloggers on the next call (thank God Paul Greenberg was at the ready). Don't take it personal Anthony, we're just not used to being treated like real people....

Technorati : blogger relationship management, crm, oracle
Del.icio.us : blogger relationship management, crm, oracle

Blogger Relationship Management: Dan Perry, This Is YOUR Comment.....

Sorry for the lame reference to the old television show, but this "little ditty" does show the power of commenting. In one of my recent posts I talked about how Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends had a group of A-list marketers share one of their marketing secrets. She also invited anyone interested to add their secret in the comments section of the post. At last count there were 87 comments to that post.

Anyway I recently had Anita join me on Technology For Business $ake to talk about the impact of that post. While we were talking I had the post up and I was asking her questions about the responses from the A-listers. I also was checking out some of the comments and on the spur of the moment brought up one that I liked from Dan Perry on the importance of blogging. Anita and I both talked about the importance of blogging, and even had some fun at the expense of small business guru Gene Marks, who recently wrote a BusinessWeek article saying blogging was one of the ten tech things small businesses should avoid (check this post out to check out the conversation I had with Gene for our show).

So here's why you should take time to write good comments on popular blogs. Dan has Google Alerts set up on his name, and he received an email alert saying that his name was mentioned in a blog entry on SmallBizTrends.com. It turns out that Anita wrote an entry talking about the conversation she had with me on our show. In the post, Anita pointed out where we talked about Dan's one sentence comment, including a link to Dan's blog.

So Dan got pretty good mileage from that one sentence comment:

• it was seen by a lot of people checking out Anita's original post
• it was mentioned on the radio airwaves here in Atlanta
• it was a part of the radio show's podcast that has been downloaded a few hundred times since Saturday
• it was highlighted in Anita's follow up post, which included the actual conversation of us talking about it
• it spawned a post on Dan's blog about this being his first mention on a radio show/podcast
• it prompted a few people to congratulate him on both the Small Biz Trends site and his own blog
• probably a number of click throughs to his blog
• and it prompted me to post this

That's not too shabby for one timely, short, but nicely put sentence. Way to go Dan!

Technorati : blogging, commenting, small biz trends

Tales in Blogger Relationship Management: Advice from One Blogger to Another

My buddy and radio show co-host Michael Thomas recently entered the blogosphere with his blog Much To Do About CRM. I think he's off to a good start and ask people to check it out if you have an opportunity, and give him a little encouragement to keep at it. Anyone who has been blogging for any amount of time knows how discouraging it can be when you first start out, and can only count close family and friends among those who actually read what you put out there.

Because Michael is a good friend and has always been open to other people's advice, I thought I'd suggest some things to him that may be of use to other new bloggers as well. Michael wrote a good entry asking Is Diversity In Your Target Market. It was in response to a post on the 1to1 blog. So I clicked the link to the 1to1 post to check it out. It was interesting and it sparked a few responses in the comment section. Michael left the following:

Pointing folks to your blog in a comment is something that people do all the time. It can definitely be a good way to get people to check it out. And because Michael is established in the CRM industry and well known to people frequenting the 1to1 blog, he'll probably get folks to click and check out what he had to say. But there are a whole lot of people checking out the 1to1 blog who probably don't know Michael, and won't be tempted to click the link just by saying "go to my blog".

It's always better to share a little of your opinion right there in your comment. That way you're giving the folks who are not familiar with you a reason to want to read more of your take on the subject. And in some cases, someone may mistake your comment for a spammer who is just trying to get you to a site by hook or crook. Especially when you point someone to a domain and not a permalink to the specific blog entry.

Just a few things to think about as you try to win friends and influence people on the web. With all that said, keep up the good work Mr. Thomas!

Technorati : blogging, brm