I have been giving a lot of thought to asking for a few LinkedIn “Introductions” recently and it’s one of those anomalies that I’m not sure I really knew how to approach. It is just a virtual introduction through a network that people are on to connect to other like minded individuals, but at the same time you are still asking one of your contacts for a favor. So in deciding whether I would or would not ask for certain introductions I thought about what my criteria would be and felt it was worth sharing. Continue Reading…

I participated  in a roundtable discussion with some marketing executives recently and one of the items I suggested was that they start asking customers and prospects for their social networking usernames when gathering information online and in person. The concept is of course not earth shattering but I was surprised at how few companies who want to interact with customers and prospects on social networks do not use the opportunities that they have to ask the simple question of what social networks are being used and how find the customer or prospect on that network.  Continue Reading…

Social CRM (CRM and Social networks mashed together) is now being offered by many different companies each with their own version of what they really consider it to be. While companies like Hearsay and Lithitum are building some terrific pieces of Social CRM, for Social and CRM to truly reach their married potential there needs to be a deeper level of integration between social and existing enterprise CRM systems.

I make the jump directly to the enterprise because while small businesses may be able to nimbly move between CRM systems until they land on the correct SASS solution, enterprise companies have legacy systems with possibly millions of customer records. There is no desire, nor ability to move to a platform built for small business. Thus they are left with silos of information and can not have a full view of their customers. How then can companies begin to integrate social with their current CRM systems?

I believe that the absolute vital first step in integrating social and enterprise CRM, the lynchpin if you will, is contact profile matching. Continue Reading…