Brent's Social CRM Blog

Google Gets a G+ For Its Latest Social Networking Efforts

As most of you probably know by now Google unleashed its latest effort in the social networking space with Google +.  You probably know this because the punditry class is out in full force to share their opinion on whether it’s going to be the Facebook Killer.  I don’t know if it will be or won’t be, but I’d have to agree with Nimble's Director of PR Brenda Christensen’s view:

 

Yup, I’d say it has been a successful launch, if only because it did set off a bunch of huffing and puffing about it (apparently leaving little breathing room for the Office 365 launch) – and most of it I’d have to say has been pretty positive.  And I’d have to fall into that camp as well after using it for a couple of days, but I’m not going to guess as to whether the success of G+ is going to be the death knell of Facebook as we know it. 

I don’t think the whole world is going to have one social network we all will be forced to choose.  And I’ve always looked at Google (and its collection of apps, services, etc.) as having the potential of being an important business-centric hub/platform of social interactions.  So for me, G+ - even in these early stages – is looking pretty good.  And even though Facebook growth is slowing down, I don't know if will go the way of MySpace anytime soon. 

This isn't a big full blow-by-blow, for that you will have no problem finding.  But I do like G+, and here are a few high level things that made G+ an easy, almost seamless addition to my work stream... or will, when the G+ iPhone app is available... 

The Squares Get The Circle

For those of you not old enough to remember Hollywood Squares, it was a game show tic-tac-toe featuring celebrities in the squares who answered questions – and the contestants would have to guess if the answers were true or false in order to get an “X” or an “O”.  And one of the catchphrases from the show was “Circle Gets The Square”.  This phrase immediately came to mind as I saw all my geek brethren getting so excited about the Circles concept – although I guess that would really be The Squares Get The Circles… but I am right there with them on this.

It’s such an easy concept, but when you’re trying to juggle a bunch of different types of relationships – and the exponentially increasing number of interactions that come with each new relationship, the ease of using circles to categorize and arrange these relationships becomes very important.  And G+ Circles are great for making it easy to share information and interact with people in specific contexts, not blasting certain “circle-centric” things to everybody you’re connected to.

Nicely Integrated Into Gmail

I may be a dinosaur, but I am still email-centric in my approach to things.  Yes I use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and some others for social networking, but the most important interactions take place in the Old World – phone and email.  That’s because I’m more of a 1-on-1/ VSG (very small group) interactionalist (I know that is not a word) than a Mass Socializer.  So I focus more heavily on email, instant message, phone (audio and video) than I do on the mass group interactions – although I do hang out there when I need to.

Google has done a nice job of layering G+ on top of the foundation they’ve put together with Gmail, chat, Google Voice and Google Apps – making it as easy to engage your circles as any other kind of Google activity.  It makes it easy to adopt G+ from the standpoint of interaction workflow…for folks like me who don’t spend a majority of time on social networks.  But this could possibly make it easier for more email-centric folks to embrace social activities, as they’re able to more easily extend outward from their comfort zone.

And you have to like the Hangout approach to video conversations G+ takes:

 

Mobile App

I don’t have an Android phone - so this is still wishful thinking for me. But after seeing the below video on G+ for Android, I’m looking forward to when they get around to making an iPhone app for this…which they say is coming shortly.

 

There’s No People On It

I don’t know how long this is going to last, but I’ve heard many people say that one of the drawbacks right not is that they don’t have that many people on it.  For me that’s a selling point, as I get to really try to build circles to manage relationships in a way I couldn’t do on Facebook or Twitter - and the people on G+ right now are GREAT for me, as there is comparitively very little LAMMP in my face - Look At Me Marketing & Promotion.  And also I’ll have a shot at understanding how to transition more naturally between circle interactions and 1-on-1 interactions.  I’m hoping that Google or third party developers get busy around this, and provide us with some cool analytics that will help in this area.

I admit I’m not looking at this as a potential new marketing/branding platform, as there will be no shortage of people doing that.  I’m just looking at it as a way to more effectively and efficiently build solid relationships that suits the way I interact with the world.  And G+ adds another set of interaction/collaboration opportunities to go along with email, IM, voice, video, and realtime document sharing/editing, etc... And it will be interesting to see how this plays out over time.

I think G+ is off to a pretty good start, but I'll leave the FB Killer discussion to other folks.

 

 

 

Collaborative Conundrum Part II - Google Apps

Continuing on with the collaboration theme (see Collaborative Conundrum) I spoke last month to Jonathan Rochelle - Google product manager for Google Docs and Google Sites. Jonathan touched on a number of different ways businesses are using Google applications to collaborate more efficiently and effectively - internally within the company or with customers.

The first part of the conversation touches on how you can use Google Apps for Domain services to host your email services, but then he gets into the collaboration subject. Jonathan talks about how you can use Google Docs to easily create a form that is linked up to a spreadsheet, email that form to customers, and as people fill out that form you can watch the data populate the sheet in real-time. Even when people are filling out the form on a mobile device. And if there is a chart linked to the spreadsheets they get updated in real-time as well. A spreadsheet that multiple people can be working on.

Jonathan also talks about how multiple people can be editing the same slide presentation at the same time in real-time. And he also talks about how people are using Google Sites to build there own internal (or external) collaborative websites to create your own collaborative workspaces. He also shares how Google Video, Google Talk and GMail can be used to create easy collaborative opportunities to deepen and extend relationships. Finally, Jonathan touches on where Google Wave fits into the collaborative toolkit.

Jonathan provided some great examples of how companies can use online tools to improve the collaboration experiences. To hear the conversation click on the player below, or download the mp3 file by clicking here.

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
Del.icio.us : google, hubspot, linkedin, liz strauss, smallbiztrends, tag test, twitter

CRM Playaz Preview - Cuil...Isn't

As me and Paul "The Dean of CRM" Greenberg get ramped up to do our show (The CRM Playaz) he comes on Technology For Business Sake to help me out. We use his appearances as test runs to work things out. Today we recorded a segment for an upcoming show that was way to much fun to wait until that's ready. So here's a 5-minute clip for you to check. We "riff" on the new search engine Cuil. To put it mildly, Cuil, pronounced like cool, isn't really. Just check out the results that came back on a search i did on my name:

Yeah, you're seeing this right. The links are all about me, but look at these pictures. Phillip Michael Thomas? They got a picture of Ricardo "F." Tubbs next to a link about me. NOTE: for all of you under 30, there was a show in the 80s where cops ran around in pastel colored zoot suits, "roughing" people up, called Miami Vice. Just be thankful you weren't around to see this.

Now I know why they have this picture there, because my CRM Essentials co-founder's name is Michael Thomas. With all that said, Ricardo "F." Tubbs??? And it looks like a picture from his days on Miami Vice at that. Honestly, is this guy still with us? If he is he must be in the witness protection program or something, because I haven't seen him since he and Crockett split up.

Besides the pictures, and not one of them are even close, the results are terrible, with most of these links being old. I mean I had forgotten about the stuff Cuil returned on me. And I wasn't alone, as my friend Jeff Brathwaite found out early this morning. Paul. take it away:

Cuil, this really ain't cool. I guess I'll just have to be happy being Google's King of Social CRM!

Technorati : crm playaz, cuil, google, miami vice, ricardo f tubbs
Del.icio.us : crm playaz, cuil, google, miami vice, ricardo f tubbs

Social CRM: Google Says I'm #1... For Now

I've gotta make this quick because I literally don't know how long this is going to last. Thanks to all of you who've been linking, commenting, digging and stumbling, my blog ranks #1 on Google's result list for the term social crm. I made it to the top for the most part on the post I did about Social CRM in Pictures and Words.

But who knows, by the time you actually read this and do the search I could be knocked out of top 1000. But, thanks to my friend David Bullock's great suggestion, I have the screen shot to prove that I did stand at the top of the mountain for one brief shining moment:

In fact my article on social CRM for SmallBizTrends.com is holding down the #4 slot as well. This is very cool, but I really don't expect this to last, as the term is gaining in popularity, which will drive a lot more content on this topic than there is at the moment. And, although I will probably lose my title to the big guys, I actually welcome this because it will mean social CRM will be taking hold in the "socialprise", as the folks from InsideView would say - more on them in the very near future.

So thanks to all of you who helped me to the top of the heap! Oh yeah, if you prefer the term CRM 2.0, my buddy Paul Greenberg is holding down the top spot for that. I guess that means The CRM Playaz rule! Not bad since we haven't even done a show yet. Damn... I'm not #1 anymore. That didn't take long.

Technorati : crm 2.0, crm playaz, google, social crm
Del.icio.us : crm 2.0, crm playaz, google, social crm

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

Conspiracy Theory Redux - I Like Mike...Arrington

As a short follow-up to the post on how Marc Benioff and Larry Ellison, with the rumor of Oracle interested in buying Salesforce.com, are trying to ruin my predictions of 2008 being the year small businesses fully embrace CRM, and that Google will buy Salesforce.com. No need to go over old ground, but I did first post that GoogleForce prediction back at the end of 2006.

Anyway just when I was thinking these predictions were totally off base, Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch wrote a post on Microsoft's Innovator's Dilemma which included these two sentences:

"In the middle of this sits Salesforce, the king of software on demand. At some point Google or Microsoft will make a serious move to acquire them, and at that point the other will respond with a counter. "

Now it goes without saying that I agree with Arrington's take on this, as it would make sense for either Microsoft or Google to be interested in Salesforce.com. But with Microsoft engaging in what appears to be a hostile takeover attempt of Yahoo!, and getting ready to roll out it's long awaited Live CRM service, I still have to go with GoogleForce. Mainly because I'd still be able to call 2008 the year of small business CRM. So I like that one more than the Oracle-Salesforce combo. If for no other reason than the name....OraForce....that's just too close to orifice for my liking.

Technorati : crm, google, microsoft, salesforce.com

Talking GQ on Wall Street Journal's Blog

I don't know how I forgot to mention this, but after speaking at the Small Business Summit I had a fun conversation with Shelly Banjo of the Wall Street Journal. I had mentioned the importance to small business people of knowing what their Google Quotient (GQ) is in order to pass the Google Test when people search for information on you or your company. So Shelly and I spent some time going over some of the quickest ways to begin showing up, which she covered on her WSJ blog entry:

http://blogs.wsj.com/independentstreet/2008/02/14/whats-your-google-quotient/

This goes along pretty nicely with an interview I did for the Aileen on the Go internet television show on BroadcastAtlanta.com last summer:

Always check BroadcastAtlanta.com for the latest in Atlanta Video news.

Thanks Shelly for including me in your blog!

Technorati : google quotient, google test, small business summit, wsj

Passing the "Live Search" Test???

This one is for all my Microsoft buddies who always cringe when I mention how important it is for people to pass the Google Test when those needing help turn to their favorite search engine to find assistance. About six months ago I was interviewed for a Wells Fargo small business publication. It was for the cover story on Web 2.0 and small business. The reporter said they would send me a link to the article when it was available. So for the first few weeks I kept an eye out for it. I never heard from the reporter, and quite honestly can't even remember his (or her) name.

Anyway I figured I'd catch it when it showed up on one of the Google alerts I have set up on my name, company name, radio show, etc. But it didn't. Plus it never showed up when I Googled my name. So I just forgot about it. But for some strange reason recently I decided to do a search on my name in "the other" search engines. And guess what popped up when I "Live Searched" my name? Yup, the Wells Fargo magazine issue with my short interview.

So it just goes to show you that it's important to regularly put your name through all the search engines, because different stuff comes up in them. Although passing the "Live Search" Test is no where near as catch as passing the Google Test.

Technorati : ask, google, live search, microsoft, yahoo

Six Apart's David Recordon on Social Netwok Portability...and Touching Base with Mom in a Web 2.0 World

On our radio show, Technology For Business Sake, we recently had a great conversation with David Recordon of Six Apart. David is their tech lead on for open platforms. Six Apart is one of those unique companies working closely with Google on OpenSocial, as well as with Facebook Beacon. And David is their point person. So he has soon interesting things to say about where we are with social networking, and where we may be headed with it.

Now I really was in to the conversation around what's going in the social networking space, and how tools are being created to make it easier for us to get the most out of social networking experiences, but what really fascinated me was the second part of the conversation where my co-host (Michael Thomas) and I started asking David about how he uses the Web 2.0 tools. We asked him because in addition to being one of the most knowledgeable people on the subject, we wanted to get the perspective of someone who has literally grown up using this stuff... because David is all of 21 years old!

Now I'm not jealous....OK maybe a little bit, because I remember (barely) what I was doing when I was 21. And it wasn't speaking all over the world as a highly respected expert. I was trying to pass intermediate accounting and deciding if I should have a grilled cheese sandwich or fish sticks for dinner. But I digress..... Anyway we really enjoyed listening to David talk about how he uses social media to communicate not only with his peers, but also with his mother. It really gave me a different perspective on how Gen Y operates, and taught me quite a bit about what to expect in the not too distant future.

So below is the whole show for you folks to check out. It's broken into segments, and the last segment features the part of the conversation where we focus on David's use of social media with respect to communicating with his mother. And the opening segment features a short conversation about solopreneurship, and a rant I did about Stanley Burrell (aka MC Hammer) becoming self-proclaimed technology entrepreneur. Yes this rant was inspired by my earlier blog entry on the subject. If you'd rather download the show just click here. Enjoy!

Technorati : david recordon, facebook, openid, opensocial, six apart