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Small Biz Resource Tip: threadsy

May 27th, 2011 :: Maria Valdez Haubrich

threadsy

It may not seem like it, but having constant access to email and social media is supposed to make communication easier and help you keep up on what’s going on in your business. The reality can be quite different, and if you’re experiencing data overload, you’re not alone. The people at threadsy can relate and are trying to help you pull it all together with a tool that pulls all your email and social media accounts into one easily readable dashboard. The application’s screen allows you to see your Twitter and Facebook streams, monitor customers’ and associates’ streams, and at the same time post your email and Facebook messages. You can also use an app that allows you to chat with important partners or clients.

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Tags: small business marketing, small business resources, social media
Posted in Marketing, Resources, small business, Social CRM, Social Media, Technology | 1 Comment »

Small Biz Resource Tip: Gist

April 22nd, 2011 :: Maria Valdez Haubrich

Gist

Small business owners are everywhere in the normal course of a business day—including everywhere online. Gist can help you gather and organize all your contacts from your different email inboxes, online address books, social networks and other sources. More than just having everyone in one place, Gist will create a business profile of each contact that consists of the person or business’s most recent news, status updates and blog posts. And the information is automatically updated so you don’t have to search multiple sites and services over and over. You can also use Gist to share information with your contacts and to gather personalized information for your next meeting.

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Tags: CRM, customer relationship management, Marketing, Resources, Social CRM, Technology
Posted in Marketing, Networking, Resources, sales process, Social CRM, Social Media, Technology | 1 Comment »

7 Reasons You Need to Use a Social CRM

January 27th, 2011 :: Monika Jansen

One of my business New Year’s resolutions is to embrace my Facebook page, become more social on it, and engage with my audience more. Another resolution is to organize all of my contacts in one place and start using a customer relationship management (CRM) tool. But in this day and age, of course, any technology worth its salt has a social element to it, so I am now hooked up with a social CRM called BatchBook. Check it out.

If you have never heard of a social CRM, time to get cozy with one. It will take your lead nurturing and conversion efforts to the next level. Here are seven reasons why you need to start using social CRM today:

1. Keep your contact information safe and sound.

If you have ever experienced a computer crash, my sympathies. It’s an ugly mess, and losing your precious client and potential client data could be disastrous. Of the social CRMs I looked at, all information resides on their servers instead of your hard drive. If your computer crashes, all is not lost—your information will still be intact and you can keep on keepin’ on.

2. Organize client notes, files and comments.

Any CRM, social or not, will allow you to organize notes, files, comments, and other information on your clients in one spot. If you’re working on a team, this is a super helpful way to keep everyone on the same page without e-mailing updates constantly.

3. Find contacts on social media.

This is the biggie. You will know where your clients and potential clients spend time online! You can find your contacts on Facebook and Twitter, and you’ll be notified if they have a blog. With BatchBook, you can even receive their new blog posts, tweets, etc. right on their contact page.

4. Listen to and analyze conversations.

The other biggie: You can find and join conversations that are happening online so you know what is important to your clients, and you can conduct searches to see what is being said about your company. No need to use a separate program—everything will stay organized in one spot.

5. Automate lead nurturing.

Forget filling up your Outlook calendar with reminders to get in touch with potential clients. Who can keep up with that anyway? With any CRM, you will be able to send e-mails containing white papers, brochure, data sheets, and other relevant information to leads at set intervals.

6. Track sales

Use the built-in project management tool to keep track of the sales, deals, and projects for each client. Another handy feature if you are working on a team.

7. It’s mobile.

Many social CRMs are mobile, so you can check the status of deals, update your to-do list, or add new client notes while you’re out and about.

If you use a social CRM, how has it helped you be more productive and increased your sales?

Image by Flickr user joey.ganoza (Creative Commons)

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Tags: lead nurturing, Social CRM, social media
Posted in Social CRM, social media, Technology | 1 Comment »

3 Online Tools That Will Send Your Marketing Efforts to the Moon

November 30th, 2010 :: Monika Jansen

I am the first to admit that staying on top of near-constant changes in social media—from platforms and tools to plug-ins and apps—is nearly impossible. So while I was at the Grow Smart Business Conference at the beginning of the month, I jotted down the name of every social media tool and plug-in that was mentioned. I checked them out and realized that if you use the following three tools together, your online presence, brand awareness and lead generation efforts might just skyrocket through the roof.

Check ‘em out, and let me know what you think!

1. Find your customers online with Flowtown.

“Social Media Marketing Made Simple”—sign me up! Flowtown is a very popular social media tool for a reason—it lives up to its tagline. Flowtown helps you learn what your customers are doing and saying on which social platforms, and connects you to them on the social networks they use the most.

Cost: There are three plans; the basic plan is only $17/month. Not a lot, considering what it can do for your social media efforts!

2. Write content your customers care about and can find with Scribe SEO.

Scribe’s SEO plug-in helps you write content that is SEO-ready. First you do a keyword search to make sure your content (Web, blog, white paper, etc.) contains relevant search terms. Then Scribe analyzes your content and suggests changes to make it even more SEO-friendly. The best part: It helps you build links, aka SEO gold.

Cost: There are four plans; the Starter plan is $17/month. (Same as Flowtown!)

3. Monitor what your customers are saying about you online with Scout Labs.

Having a good customer relationship management (CRM) tool in you arsenal is essential to growing your business. Scout Labs just partnered with Lithium Technologies, which makes a social CRM networking platform, so you get shuttled over to Lithium when you start looking around Scout Labs. However, their social media monitoring tool allows you to listen to what your customers are saying about your company and its products and services in real-time so you can react quickly to close a sale or protect your brand. Pretty neat.

Cost: It’s a huge secret. You need to get in touch with them. Not neat at all. But it’s a really powerful tool that’s worth a look-see.

Image by Flickr user caffaknitted (Creative Commons)

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Tags: Branding, content analysis, Marketing, Search Marketing, seo, Social CRM, social media monitoring
Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing, Small Business, Social CRM, Social Media, Technology | No Comments »

Integrating Social CRM into your Inbound Marketing Strategy

April 19th, 2010 :: Steven Fisher

I am sure you have all heard of the term, CRM which stands for Customer Service Management. CRM systems have been around for the last two decades have taken on all shapes (sales focused, customer service focused), sizes (small teams and enterprises) and technology approaches (local installations and cloud services). They generally have five major functions – lead management, opportunity management, account management, document management and reports/analytics. For the most part this hasn’t really changed, only the processes and approaches to convert those at the beginning of the pipeline as a prospect to the end of the pipeline where they become a customer. Sure there are tools and other stuff to manage the customer when they have issues or want to order more stuff in the future but things in the last two years have seen a shift in the way we view the customer and communicate with them.

I am of course talking about social media.

Gone are the days of one-way communications or a back a forth with emails and phone calls. Social media means two-way engagement and at some times hearing customers talk about your company and your products in ways you might not be happy about. You have one of two choices at this point in time – ignore them and their voices will get louder and you will be considered obsolete or engage and talk to them hearing their concerns and responding in a transparent way so others see you as a company that actually cares about its customers.

So I have talked about CRM and social media. Let me introduce you to the concept of Social CRM.

I know, I know, everybody is slapping the word “social” on everything like they did with “e-” in 2000. I will give you that Social Media is on a groundswell right now but the concept of Social CRM is a great one and true evolution in a technology that needs a breathe of fresh air. Here is a great example of traditional CRM and Social CRM:

(photo: Hurricane Agency)

Barack Obama, the Social CRM president

I was introduced to the concept of social CRM about two years ago by two friends, Brent Leary and David Bullock. They were following the campaign of this freshman Senator from Chicago that had just announced his run for the presidency. His name of course, Barack Obama. Senator Obama had assembled many talented people including young innovative campaign marketing staffers who began leveraging social media tools to build a community and begin what many call a movement to get Senator Obama elected. Over the course of the campaign, Brent and David created a site called Barack 2.0 and tracked all the tools utilized to create a comprehensive Social CRM system to help him get elected. It is a fascinating study and they eventually published a successful book on this entire process and you can check it out at the site Barack 2.0.

The 18 Use Cases of Social CRM

Fast forward two years and many companies have integrated Social CRM into their solutions. Many companies have attempted to implement some form of Social CRM process and last month, The Altimeter Group put together a great paper on 18 Use Cases of Social CRM and it is summarized in this chart below:

You can see that the use cases follow the segments of a typical CRM system the key here. You can read the full paper at http://www.slideshare.net/jeremiah_owyang/social-crm-the-new-rules-of-relationship-management and dive deep into the analysis.

Three Steps You Can Do to Integrate Social CRM into your Inbound Marketing Strategy

1.) Start Talking About it With Your Team - Now if you are a small business that team may be just you and in other cases it might be 50 people. In all cases you should look at the chart above and see which functions could be served by a Social CRM solution.

2.) Evaluate Your Social CRM Software Options – There are many Social CRM tools available for your small business. Some products, like BatchBlue CRM were launched from the beginning as a Social CRM solution. There are many others like Salesforce.com and Siebel that are adding Social CRM functionality to their solutions. If you already use these tools see how you can utilize these functions and if not, look around the web and search on “Social CRM software” to see your options.

3.) Integrate Social CRM practices into your inbound marketing processes – The only way to start using this is by doing it. If your company isn’t on Twitter, sign up. If it doesn’t have a fan page, make one and start promoting it. Learn what customers are using social media tools and engage with them. Social CRM software can help but ultimately your inbound marketing activities will use your Social CRM tool as a hub.