Monday, August 31, 2009

Video: Pfizer's Twitter Dilemma

Interesting summary on how the Pharma Industry is struggling to deploy Social Media. Twitter-using consumers are highly interested in their drug products. But their marketing communications are rigidly constrained by Federal regulations. While Pfizer has just launched a Twitter site, the company is not exactly sure what it's allowed to say on it.

Updated Social Technology Profiling Tool (More Than 4 of 5 Online Adults Participate in Social Technology)


Between work, launching a new Social CRM Product, and managing 5 other websites - I finally got around to publishing the new Groundswell Technology profiling tool. Also found in their new studies were the fact that more than 4 of 5 Online U.S Adults now participate in social technology. Check out Groundswell blog here.



Video: Social Media Speaker Shane Gibson on Social Media Marketing (HQ)

From Shane Gibson's seminar on social media that was delivered to a seminar group organized by Seminarium in Santiago Chile. April 2009.

Video: My RSS Database - Google Reader

Still think RSS is dead with the recent explosion of Twitter and several social media monitoring tools. Steve Rubel shows you how to use Google Reader as a Database. As it turns out, Google Reader provides ideal search capability to to search for historical information based on the sites you have been monitoring over the last couple of months, or years for that matter..

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

SlideShare: Social Media Strategies instead of Tools




Video: The Anatomy of A Social CRM Profile Using SocialCRM Tools



Service-Push's new suite of Social CRM Products for Salesforce.Com illustrates how to link Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook information about your customer right within Salesforce.Com. Attached are a high level suite of features:

  • Lookup Twitter, Linkedin, and Facebook information regarding your Contacts.

  • Automatically Monitor Customer Conversations.

  • Seamlessly Create Leads from Twitter

  • Import Twitter Conversations into Lead or Contact Records.

  • Import Facebook Profile information into Lead or Contact Records.

  • Track Lead Source Information as a Facebook, Twitter, or Linkedin Source.

  • Track company conversations.

  • Lookup Company Fan Pages.

Monday, August 10, 2009

5 Steps to Social Selling by John M. Perez

Over the last two weeks there has been alot of coverage around Social Media as a sales tool. Specifically, the buzz has been primarily about Social CRM Tools that sit on top of your existing CRM system to help your organization sell more effectively. Recent articles on SearchCRM discussing Social Sales, and Xerox's announcement on how they plan to utilize Social Media has clearly illustrated that the Enterprise now sees value in Social Selling.

But what really is Social Selling? As I put it to a collegue the other day, it is first a strategy! It is not a tool or technology. In fact, the tools and technology out there today really force the strategy of Social Selling. Service Push's Social CRM Suite of tools enable that strategy. So here are the 5 Key steps in Social Selling that you may want to employ with your next lead that you may find on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. These are steps any sales person should take to effectively sell using social techniques.

#1 - Monitor Conversations Related to Your Brand, Service, or Topic.
#2 - Add value to those conversations and get support and/or provide assistance to those who inquiring about your products or services.
#3 - Become active in the community by posting or adding valuable content to your Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn Networks
#4 - Follow, Connect, and Link with your Leads across these social networks as long as they follow you or have been familiar with your Social Conversations online.
#5 - Continually work the relationship and begin to have sales discussions.

If your a sales person who wants to skip steps 1 - 3, then you will fail at Social Selling. Many folks online will not take a sales pitch over the web without seeing value in what you are doing within the community. The benefits of this strategy is that it forces Salespeople to manage the relationships better while also ensuring that they are upto speed on trends, and conversations within their industry. The challenges with this will likely be in the Sales' persons success to keep up with adding value to the Online Communities through tweets, and blog posts while also serving as a Customer Support liaison on product or service related issues. However, when this is effectively done with the right resources and support - you will see customers convert to your product.

What are some of your steps in managing a successful Social Sales?

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Video: Social Media Speaker Shane Gibson on Social Media Etiquette

This is useful for all those Spam Marketers who are innappropriately utilizing Social Media channels like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Interesting summary about engagement using Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Video: Get a Pulse on Your Accounts - Salesforce Quick Tip

Some interesting ways to roll up consolidated information about an account in your CRM system using Rollup Summary fields in Salesforce.Com. This is actually very useful when you want to see a 360 view of your financial and operational data.