Friday, June 26, 2009

Marc Benioff Says The Future of Computing Looks Like Twitter

Referring to real time results, Marc Benioff, co-founder and chief executive of Salesforce.com, told attendees at today’s Structure 09 conference in San Francisco that the world of business software and infrastructure is starting to see the same craze for real-time results that’s taking over web search. And he extolled the virtues of the pioneer of the real-time web — microblogging service Twitter.

While this is a very broad statement, there certainly is alot of vision behind it. If you think of Realtime in a CRM environment, your potentially talking about monitoring real time customer activities, conversations, and customer behaviors. The Internet and Social Media can bring the world of Conversations into our CRM systems easily.


However,
what we have yet to truly roll out is realtime Customer Behavior Monitoring when it comes to a customer utilizing a company's products, services, or for realtime web visits. Today there are still many Enterprise companies that can not provide realtime usage of their customers use of a product. Most companies summarize and bill for their usage monthly. Several other companies are ignoring the incoming web traffic to their sites. Quite often losing a good deal of potential leads or potential buyers interested in your product. Let's see where this goes over the next year.



Thursday, June 25, 2009

Video: Rockstars of Social CRM (2009 Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston)


Great video taken yesterday at the Rockstars of Social CRM Conference in Boston in which I just missed due to scehdule conflicts. The discussion of Social CRM is hot, and here they talk about how the CRM strategy has evolved from one of managing your customer relationships to engaging with customers.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Video: Traditional vs Social CRM (What is The Difference?)

Inspired by an article by Brent Leary, I decided to give some concrete examples of how Traditional CRM approaches measure up with Social CRM approaches. In this 1 Slide Summary John M. Perez walks you through examples of Prospecting, Business Process Automation, and Storage of Customer Information in your CRM system. He presents 2 examples of these CRM attributes in a Traditional CRM Strategy vs. a Social CRM approach. Recommending that a good blend of both will be required in order to implement a successful CRM Business Strategy.

Video: SocialCRMTools - FaceBook and Salesforce.Com Integration (Faceforce)

Do you want to get more social with your existing and new customers? Traditional CRM is all about traditional data like Name, Email, Address, etc. Today's prospects and customers are having conversations on Facebook, Twitter and Social CRM Tools is here to help.

This is a demo of an application called Faceforce.Com that was written by Clara Shih. It demonstrates the ability to integrate your contacts in your Saleforce.Com system with their Facebook information. This is ideal to keep track of your customers business and personal interactions.

This set of features will be included in an application called SocialCRM Tools.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Video: Social CRM Tools - Salesforce.Com & Twitter Integration


Do you want to get more social with your existing and new customers? Traditional CRM is all about traditional data like Name, Email, Address, etc. Today's prospects and customers are having conversations on Twitter and Social CRM Tools is here to help.

This is a prototype demo of an upcoming Social CRM Tool that will integrate your Salesforce.Com's Contacts, and Leads seamlessly with those Customers and Leads who have Twitter. This demo shows you how to do a look up of a customers twitter profile, and seamlessly import it into Salesforce.Com's Contact, and Lead Records. The application imports Twitter information like Bio, Picture, Website URL, into Salesforce.Com so you can constantly stay up to date and connect with your customers online while working withing your CRM system.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Video: What is a Browser?

Common people get asked what is the difference between a browser and a search engine. You will be surprised to hear how many people don't know the difference.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Dell Makes $3 Million Dollars Using Twitter

The New York Times just released a blog indicating that Dell has made $3 Million Dollars using the popular Microblogging Service called Twitter.

They made the $3 million in revenue directly through Twitter since 2007, when it started posting coupons and word of new products on the microblogging site. I can see the founders of Twitter very quickly creating a paid version of their blog for Enterprise Users.


Monday, June 15, 2009

Video: Force.com Sites: Run your Web sites in the Cloud

Salesforce.Com announced last week a FREE Version of their Force.Com platform for Developers. What this platform does is allow you to easily create functional databales driven websites with app functionality in weeks vs. months.

There are a couple of examples mentioned that appear to be robust. One of the things that you are limited to is using their Visual Force language in conjunction with HTML.

Video: 4 Steps To Utilizing Twitter For Lead Generation



This tutorial introduces the concept of finding leads for your new product or service by using Twitter Search, Tweet Deck, and your CRM system. This demo illustrates the Lead Creation using Salesforce.Com.


On Demand CRM Cost Calculator


Looking to invest some money on a new CRM tool but investing in an On Premise version of Siebel/Oracle out of the question? Check out this cost calculator tool. This calculator compares costs of Zoho CRM Professional Edition, SugarCRM Professional Edition, Salesboom Professional Edition, Entellium, Salesforce Professional Edition, and Oracle CRM OnDemand.

Just plug in the number of users across each of the other solutions and you will see the cost comparison automatically populate. This was taken from Zoho CRM's website. While Zoho appears to be one of the cheaper solutions, I encourage you not to only utilize price as the only factor in your decision.

Full Spreadsheet View.



Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Social Networks Are Not Just For Kids.. 1/2 of U.S Adults are Now On Them!


An interesting read illustrating that just over half of U.S Adults now have a Social Media account. The stats and figures included in the article are from a recent Harris Survey. Courtesy of Service-Push.Com (A CRM & Social Media Consulting Firm), written courtesy of your truly!



Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Video: Is Social Media Changing the world of Sales & Marketing?


Here is an excellent video overview from Shane Gibson co-author of Socialble! He addresses an audience of business owners and sales professionals at an event produced by Amuse Consulting. He talks about how social media and social networking is turning sales and marketing upside-down.

Some key take aways from this video are the following:

#1) Traditional Sales and Marketing Efforts are not working.
#2) You no longer own your brand, your consumers and online communities do.
#3) Don't just get on the Twitter Bandwagon for followers. Make sure it works for your business.




Video: Social Media Strategy Increases Tampon Sales

Does Social Media increase Sales? Proctor and Gamble says it does. This is a never ending subject of controversy in the business world. Depending who you talk to, Social Media helps drive up sales, some don't understand it, and others simply don't believe it will get them any closer to closing a deal. What do you think?