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Check out the new Foursquare network which allows brick-and-mortar businesses to track visitor behavior the same way online businesses have become accustomed to doing with website stats. Here is an article on the service that is worth the read: Foursquare Introduces New Tools for Businesses.

Combining the Foursquare service with website and email promotions, as well as Twitter promotions and CRM data integration, seems like a great new marketing tool for businesses that serve an on foot clientele. This benefits the customer too, as businesses can more specifically cater to their needs and offer them promotions they are likely to value.

I am going to be looking into ways to bring the Foursquare data into CRM databases (SalesForce.com, etc.) in the coming days and invite input from anyone who has already researched the subject.

Labels: marketing, social_media

“Why do I know more about strangers on Facebook than my own employees?” asked SalesForce.com CEO Mark Benioff last week at Dreamforce '09.

Chatter is SFDC's answer to the business need for real time communication within dispersed groups that all happens within a private, secure, company environment. With Chatter, which will become a standard feature of all editions of SFDC early next year, every company employee will be able to create a profile highlighting their areas of expertise, publish status updates of what they're working on , and view updates of not only other staff's status but also events within the CRM portion of SFDC. Users won't all have to have CRM licenses to access Chatter, including the updates related to events within the CRM part of the system, which does require a SFDC license for record access.

I can definitely see how many companies will benefit from having this sort of collaborative tool. I can recall years ago when I was doing quality control at a large international company and would often wonder who to go to for information I needed to confirm whether data I was seeing was correct or not. It would have been great to be able to search profiles for expertise and work functions. There was also the one day each month where I was buried deep in number crunching and needed people in several roles to be super available to respond promptly to critical inquiries from me during that time, while others needed to basically not ask anything of me on those days. I would have loved to have been able to just put in my status update that it was "processing day" and to have trained everyone I worked with to know what that meant and how to respond. I could go on and on about the potential I see, just as I personally find plenty of good use for Facebook and Twitter in staying coordinated with important people in my personal life and informed of significant, but not quite email worthy events in their lives.

Chatter will also be available to non-CRM users of the Force.com platform within the version that is at the $50/user/month price point. It will of course provide no insight into CRM record events, since there are no CRM objects in that edition.

Labels: CRM, social_media

I just came across the below article that I enjoyed so much I decided to repost it here for your enrichment as well. I am also seeing social CRM as the wedding of two powerful concepts to deliver a business success solution in the most economical and effective way currently available. Bill makes some excellent points:

"Social CRM - The Start of Social Selling - Learn It! By Bill Rice

Has CRM software gone Social too? Jeremiah Owyang, a Forrester Research analyst and author of Web-Strategist.com, believes twitter future could be a Social CRM.

There is no question that Twitter's popularity is growing over night with thousands of people and companies joining daily. Many companies have taken notice of the growing number of people on twitter and recognizing it can be a way to connect to customers and grow their business's. These companies are joggling around Twitter and wondering how to implement this tool into the business plan. The concept of Twitter being used as a CRM is very fitting and presents itself well to many companies!

This concept is a long way from the discussion people are having about what a big waste of time Twitter, Facebook, and other like social networks are. This is the third time in less than a weak I have come across discussions of this concept. That being Social Selling!

Sales is inherently about relationships, building trust, and referrals. The familiarties that the Twitter world would know as they are following, friending, and retweeting? Yes! These concepts are what builds sales! It was only a matter of time before social media became a sales tool.

Social networking will become a natural part of CRM software, and faster than most think. This is not happening because of companies like Salesforce.com are sticking it into their software. No, simply because that is the why consumers are shifting how they communicate online and because consumers want to be contacted in this way.

The time for companies and their sales force to start adapting to the new way to approach sales has started. Get your sales team building more trust and improving the relationships they have with your consumer. This result will always lead to an increase in sales and more referrals that companies can build upon! If you are in sales, it is time to get your social CRM software and start Social Selling!

Here are some keys to get you started!

* Get on Twitter and Facebook--build an audience
* Be natural. This attracts people that will want to buy from you
* Monitor and be responsive to requests you can help with
* Get all your existing clients into your social network

Do you agree with the effect that Social Networking is shifting the way we should approach Sales? If so what else should the new class of social sales people be doing?

Raise your sales performance with Lead Management Software. Use Social CRM to start Social Selling!

Article Source: Social-CRM---The-Start-of-Social-Selling---Learn-It

Labels: CRM, Guest Bloggers, social_media

I get asked often why someone might Twitter. For most people my advice is, "No good reason." That's because they are private individuals who work 9-5 jobs and then go home to their families. Everyone who cares what they are doing (or what they have to say in a couple sentences) will get to ask them over dinner that evening.

But if your business would like to develop a dialogue with a public that follows a conversation with you, Twitter is a free and easy method to open up that dialogue.

Basically, the idea behind Twitter is that someone is curious about someone else, and on the other side, someone wants to nurture that fascination. A fan wants to know what the object of her adoration is up to in his casual moments and feel a personal connection. A famous person wants to satisfy millions of fans in just minutes a week and grow his fan base.

A business wants to control the dialogue about its products or services. It wants to make sure it is not only a part of the conversation thread, but the one leading it. It wants to present a friendly and personal face to the public with only the cost of the staff time for whoever writes it.

Twitter is a great PR tool for any business that caters to the public at large. It's a litle less useful for businesses that cater to other businesses, because realistically, what company would look to Twitter to find out what's up with a company they are thinking of purchasing services from? It's not exactly an official reference source. But I recently started a Twitter account for my consulting business anyway.

It's worth the time to me to get the name of my business in circulation and it doesn't take that much effort. I may only post on there when I update this blog, as many people do, summarizing the gist of a new post so that interested Twitter folks can find the blog when they use the Twitter Search feature to scan for certain topics. Or I may find myself getting more involved in the general dialogue, posting replies to others' Tweets, searching for topics and people I know, etc. We'll see.

For me it's a marginally beneficial PR service, but if your business does fall into that perfect category for which Twitter makes great PR sense, well you can't beat free PR. And on top of all that, just being on Twitter at all paints your brand with "new cool chic," which can be priceless and elusive with some audiences.

Getting started with Twitter is super easy. It literally takes about a minute. Getting a sense that something is actually happening however, can take considerably longer. But hang in there, and consider following AspiraTech -- I'm happy to follow you back as well.

Labels: marketing, PR, social_media