Social Media and Social Technologies have many new building blocks and take time to impliment

Keep an eye on these folks to learn the current trends in Social Web Technologies

The social wave just keeps getting bigger every time I look. Today I was building out my profile on Plaxo and found this great Web TV Show http://thesocialweb.tv/ If you are planning to work with a social community for your business then there are 39 and counting episodes that review a lot of the current trends and technologies in social media. These guys are sharp and have a lot of interesting guests and comments in their conversational format.

 

Couple thoughts on how I have positioned our use of social media.

My Social Framework

In addition to managing our 6 corporate portals and contributing to my blog, I currently manage several social network profiles; Facebook for connecting with family and friends, MySpace for my music profile, Plaxo and Linked In for business and professional networking. Then Twitter to communicate with industry pros and a community that connects with my Blog at www.cnpintegrations.com/myblog/ (so far around 20,000 followers). On top of that since we are using Social Media for part of our SEO strategy. We have accounts on Flicker, Digg, Stumbled Upon, Picasa, Delicious and many many others... to connect our messages and inter-link with each other. There are more that I will get involved with over time but this is plenty to keep me/us busy along with getting any real work done or saving time to spend with my family.

Careful with how you spend your time

This is such a time commitment and I see so many folks involved with even more than we are... I do wonder when they sleep. The trick is before you just start signing up that you think out a strategy of how you plan to use these tools to best serve your purpose and that will consider what will your best use of time. I had been advising folks to get active with a blog for years before I actually started posting regular on mine just because I did not have the time to commit to it. I knew the affect it could have on our site traffic but unless you are ready to be consistent then it could waist time since it has to grow over time and you need to continue to contribute content or you lose your readers and when you start up again you have to build a new audience from scratch. Make sure you establish your priorities and stay focused so you can get the best return on your time and talent investment. Each implementation is as unique as the individuals involved in making them happen. There are unique considerations for all of the social technologies that require thought and a keen eye on current trends if you want to implement them successfully or now waste a bunch of time. Remember all we have in this world is our time and once it is spent we cannot get it back.

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Waking up to Social CRM and the "Conversation"

I wrote a piece a while back about Customer Conversation Management or "CCM" which is really the essence of the new CRM 2.0 and now getting the label Social CRM. Regardless of the term you prefer to use to describe it the reality is that the customer is in charge of the engagement these days since they now have so many choices and your competition is global. I have plenty of blog articles here that further explore this concept but when I found this video, I had to put it up since it hits the core of the problem many companies have today with their customer engagements.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM7ZaamZzDA

CNP Integrations has a proven process for succesful Customer Relationship Business Management and CRM 2.o or Social CRM implimentation. 

 If you have customer relationship pains and need consulting or technology solutions let's begin a "Conversation".

:-)

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Build Value by following a success program and planning carefuly

I have been following the ITtoolbox.com discussions lately and ran across these comments below. It reinforces much of what we have learned and why we have designed a consulting practice around our Value Building Methodology. Notice the date of these articles. In other words this is not new information but folks are still making the same mistakes nearly 4 years later.With the new Social CRM and social technologies that we have to now integrate into these systems it is only going to get more challenging.

 

Invest in good training, support and consulting to align your initiatives

To implement CRM effectively it often takes an outside consulting team to help plan, execute, train and align an organization's people and processes with the technology. Thinking you can just buy some software that an ambitious CEO or IT manager likes and that you can  implement it without a full support package from a qualified consulting firm is a path for disaster. It tends to be a rather expensive proposition on so many levels when you do not invest in the right balance of consulting with your technologypurchase. It is a myth that one you purchase the software and turn it on that your investment is over. This will become a paridigm shift in most cases for the way you do business and will continue to evolve over an extended period of time.

Open Source solutions positions you for future needs

This is one of the reasons we like solutions built off of an open source code base. The cost of entry on the software is much lower so you can get more implementation resources and training for the same investment while not being held over the barrel on the software should you want to modify the system to meet unique requirements down the road. Many of these requirements you may not even know you need yet.

Disclaimer: Contents are not reviewed for correctness and are not endorsed or recommended by ITtoolbox or any vendor. Popular Q&A contents include summarized information from CRM-Select discussion unless otherwise noted.

1/24/2006 By ITtoolbox Popular Q&A Team for ITtoolbox as adapted from CRM-Select discussion group

1. Adapted from a response by Vladimir Stojanovski on 1/20/2006

Here are a couple from my list:

1. Medium-size company wanting to facilitate revenue growth purchased SFA software without any sales strategy. They expected that the software would make their life easier. As most SFA software, it came with its own pre-packaged best practices, which did not fit the company's processes. The implementation dragged out as the company realized that they had to re-examine their processes.

2. A large company purchased call center software to address the growing backlog of thousands of unanswered customer emails. After the software was implemented, training followed. During training, the users scream: we can't use this system, we won't use this system. Two reasons: first, same as #1, little effort was made to align process to packaged functionality, and second, no effort was made to engage the users and build champions among them.

3. A fast-growing company with a solid CRM strategy purchased and implemented SFA, Call center, and Marketing automation software. They did not, however, consider the importance of data quality in the beginning. The Result: reports could not be trusted, pipeline and trending was worthless, and the project went through a major crisis until these issues started getting addressed.

After a number of years, the company in #1 has abandoned the original SFA software and opted for a more simplistic and less costly solution from an SaaS vendor. The company in #2 has taken a step back, re-examined their CRM strategy, re-mapped its processes, and rebuilt most CRM components. The company in #3 has continued building upon the described solution, overcomming the initial data quality issues.


2. Adapted from a response by Nic Harvard on 1/20/2006

Outside the scope of pure CRM systems, but within the scope of business-critical systems, plenty:

All boil down to:
1) Rubbish needs analysis
2) Rubbish solution analysis and selection on top of poor needs analysis
3) Poor end-to-end implementation, with little outcome-based assessment of the implementation team (with a serious stress here on training and external change mgt)
4) Zero, or poor metrics in place to measure success, not only before, but during, at time of go-live, and for 12 months minimum after.

The key points are 80% point one, and 20% point two. The third and fourth are merely confusing factors, that while important, could not *really* (other than in a completely dysfunctional org) exist without the first two.


3. Adapted from a response by gvertucci on 1/22/2006

CRM implementations fail for three reasons, and it all boils down to Human Nature! If a business owner can overcome these three things, CRM will pay for itself rather than be a huge expense.

1) CRM implementations live and die by its EMPLOYEES acceptance... PERIOD!! If the user refuses to use it, IT BECOMES AN EXPENSE!!!

2) Not only is there no BENEFIT for a user to learn and use a CRM application, it's actually a DETRIMENT for an end user to learn and use a CRM application!!!

3) If you encounter a businessman who is looking to purchase a CRM solution, regardless of price or company, they should be able to answer, INTELLIGENTLY and TRUTHFULLY, this one simple questions... "How will your EMPLOYEES benefit from learning and using a CRM application?" If they cannot, they will LOSE MONEY ON THE PURCHASE. Let's see if they can actually ENFORCE the use of a CRM if their sales department is under the impression that it will help line the pockets of the CEO/OWNER even further while THEY have to work harder with no
compensation to learn and use it for that purpose.

See related blog articles and links:

• 100's of Entrepreneur and small business resources
• Integrating the People in your business with CRM Technology
• Let's talk about flat bid contracts and Value Building for Joomla CMS Web 2.0 Development
• 10 Tips for entrepreneurs and your business to beat the recession
• Leveraging CRM Software in the Small Business
• Integration of People with Technology & Acquisition of Business Intelligence
• Cheaper is not always better when it comes to hosting.
• Universal project management concepts
• Good insight from Jack Derby
• Building lists to grow your business opportunities 
• Lower risk through low cost pay as you go retainers
• 8 Bench Marks of a Great Client
• 12 U.S. Laws Bloggers Need to Know
• Social Technologies are revision in the model of power
• CRM/ERP, Joomla CMS, QuickBooks all-in-one Solution for SMB's
• Value Building Landing Pages with Lead Capturing CRM
• Info@hand "CRBM Platform" best kept secret in CRM Community
• Platform as a Service an inspired new generation of CRBM
• How important is a CRM Software Application for your SMB?
• Where do I get started with CRBM (Customer Relationship Business Management)?
• Open Source or SaaS CRM in Your Business
• Universal project management concepts
• Virtual Office Tools Save Money
• Web 2.0 boom and useful web tools

You can also visit our blog home at www.cnpintegrations.com/myblog/ for regular new posts.

For more information about the CRBM Platform and other educational resources be sure to visit: www.learningcrm.com

 

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Configuration of Complex Joomla CMS and CRBM Platforms

Joomla is a powerful framework for delivering Complex web portals. With over 4700 extensions and counting, the largest developer network in the world and the most user friendly interface has made the award winning Joomla CMS the fastest growing open source CMS project perhaps in the world. With millions of users and enthusiasts from all around the globe and a low cost of entry this is quickly becoming the dominant content management system (CMS) for small businesses (SMB's) and even larger enterprises and institutions.  We compared Joomla vs Drupal and Joomla vs Wordpress which are other worthy technologies but Joomla seemed for us to be the best overall platform for recommending to our customers. As Joomla integrators and Joomla Component Developers we deliver complex Joomla configurations for a wide variety of customers. Joomla is a perfect framework for the micro small business owner that needs training and mentoring to work independently on building their web empire as well as the small business enterprise with complex Joomla configuration needs. 

There are several layers in deploying a Joomla CMS project.

• Planning and content architecture
• Template Design and graphics
• Components and Configurations
• User experience
• Customer Programming
• Legacy System Integrations
• SEO and Marketing
• Joomla User Training
• Ongoing Technical Support

Just to name a few... With any technology there are different points of entry depending on the experience and technical aptitude of the humans interacting with the system, the technical and business process requirements and the overall dynamics of the organization implementing the particular solution. We (our CNP Consultants) try to help folks "Get the most value out of their technology investment". Yea you will see this in our marketing but this is much more than hype. Value can be the key to success or failure.  Among the biggest mistakes we have seen folks make and even made ourselves are:

Common Mistake #1

Just because you can do something with technology does not always make it practical.

I have personally implemented many powerful tools that accomplish their intended functionality but they actually never get used to their full potential by the end customers. While these were fun for us to build as developers and to see something cool that works, it did not really serve any of us well since our clients customers do not use them and thus they have a significant investment they are net getting a return on and thus until this first investment is paid for they are not all that excited to engage us to build more stuff.

The key here is determining first the business priorities of the project and then making sure everyone is listening to the needs of the end customer or user. Hey sometime folks build web tools just for themselves. I know I often post blog articles with a lot of links I want to not only share but also refer back to and we put plenty of tools online that we want to use ourselves as much as we want to and share with our customers.  Just make sure you are clear why you are doing something and assess if it is going to deliver the right return on your investment.

Stay focused on what your customers are saying and what will yield the greatest return.

Technology implementation can be a never ending pit you throw money into, something that my father used to say about owning a luxury boat. If you are building your site for the shear ego of having a beautiful site with all kinds of creative features and functionality, have at it and of course we love to work with entrepreneurs with big ideas. However, like any relationship and any good investment a long term strategy is often much more practical. Our consulting customers get good advice about products and services that can grow their business or allow them to continue to get value from their investments. I have seen folks to often go for a quick sell and end up with dysfunctional customer relationships that ultimately cost more than the profit you made in the first place. Ask yourself many questions including "Is what I am doing today going to matter a year from now"? If you ask the right questions up front this can help you get the most out of your initiatives.

Technology is a moving target

One of the many reasons we got behind the Joomla CMS project as a core competency was because it was open source which offered freedom and scalable options for solving the greatest amount of business problems.  We took the gamble from the trends in the market place that Joomla would continue to grow with features and stability and that the developer community would continue to be attracted to the Joomla framework thus building more confidence in the market place. With a scalable platform that is built on open source code for use was great since we wanted to work with technology that sold itself and that we could support and expand upon it to meet the needs of the types of customers we wanted to attract.  Any kind of dynamic web portal project is a moving target and often needs to change course in mid stream. You have to keep good forward momentum yet listen to the trends in the marketplace so you can sail into the wind effectively. An innovative and scalable open source platform like Joomla is a perfect foundation for meeting this challenge.

But wait there is more...

A couple years ago, after a good year of working with Joomla we were looking for solutions that could actually help us build an all-in-one web based framework for managing our business in a Virtual Office Environment (everything accessible on the web). This is when after trying and implementing several CRM and project management tools ranging from SugarCRM to MS Project to SharePoint we found Info@hand CRBM. This was the perfect platform since it was open source code base and integrated with the Joomla CMS and QuickBooks. Now after 3 years of connecting the dots we have a powerful web infrastructure with "Complete transaction life cycle management" and "Customer Relationship Business Management". Very very very cool platform... we love it and so do many of the customers we have introduced to it. Though this system is also wired up with the DimDim.com conferencing and collaboration suite it also fills many gaps in client customer collaboration. These types of regular new innovations continue to add low cost of entry tools and value to the small business.

Sounds complicated but it is also very simple if you have time as your friend

What we have learned as "early adopters" is that there is much more to it than the technology if you are going to be successful. Complex Joomla Integrations are getting simpler as this platform evolves. The old carpenters saying get the right tool for the right job is very good advice.  Since there are so many tools now in our toolbox and we fully understand how they all can work together I know I can start talking about it and it does not take long to get that "deer in the headlights look" from a prospect. The trick here is making sure we establish a clear roadmap and strategy for implementing technologies that will bring the greatest reward to your business and value to our customers. This takes time and effort to get it right and should be done early on in your process.

Common Mistake #2

Just because you have the technology does not mean you should implement it.

The second most challenging aspect of implementing a complicated project is the thought process of "let's do it all at once".  I have often had clients that want to load up their sites with a ton of components and then they want to throw these new features out to their customers or workforce all at once. Well this is a huge horse pill that never gets swallowed. Hate to say it but until recently I have been guilty of this myself. There is a fine line between "Build it and they will come" and "Here take a bite and let me know if you like it".

Remember this is all about relationship management

I remember back in my days of dating that it only takes one or two words to "turn off" and scare someone away. Essentially this is a similar process we go through for attracting customers. While you want to make sure what you are presenting is honest and has substance you do not want to overload, overwhelm folks with more information than they are particularly interested in at the moment. You also want to put out information and web tools in a way that they want to have them presented. As in listen well and be a good conversationalist. Such is the case even more now with the Social Technology boon. I used to say "it is not hard to fall in love since people are impulsive by nature but the real challenge is falling in love with the right one". The same is true with technology. It can be easy to get excited about some new features and want to add them right away to your site just because they are cooler than the site next door. However,  every time you push something new out it may distract or turn off your customers.

In relationships of any kind they are best nurtured over time. Deploying technology is a complex multi dimensional relationship. Moving too fast has greater risk of failure for everyone involved. You actually have several relationships and processes that need careful consideration over time:

• Solutions: Customer Needs - Business Process Need - Technology Implementation
• Relationships: Vendor Teams - Client Teams - Customers

In Conclusion work smarter with a good plan

Plan carefully and gather the right information about your customers and how technology can get you the best results as it relates to your business strategy. Make sure you deploy solutions over time with good the right vendors and the right customers. These systems have enough complexity that you have to really keep your eye on the ball or you can and will often times fail. None of us want to waste time or money and the wrong decision in this economy could cost you business. Before you travel anywhere it is a good idea to get directions, a map or invest in a GPS. Why would you not want to invest in good quality consulting to help guide you along the path of implementing technology?

 

Value Builder Methodology

We have since built consulting practices to address these two common mistakes folks make with complex technology implementations. Yea sure we have to be geeks and able to wire all this stuff up and yes we do this well but the trick to getting value out of your technology is much more that the groovy tools we can dish out.  With a few exceptions, most of the technology these days is all ready built and what that means is there is a greater need for configuration and being able to map the humans with the technology in a way that will allow you to stay focused on your priorities. Just start asking yourself questions like: What actions will give the best long term results? What will put out the fires of tomorrow before they start? How can I make this profitable to my company and add unique benefits to my customers?This should help get you on the right path.

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Who doesn't like to hear themselves speak?

Fifteen years ago or so I was introduced to the Myers Briggs personality testing and found out that as part of my personality type I tend to start talking and as the conversation and blurting of ideas comes out I am able to better formulate ideas and validate more of my beliefs. Good or bad in some settings but perhaps I am one of those guys that likes to hear themselves talk. Well, the joy of a blog is I can usually do this in a couple drafts and spare you the bulk of the bla bla bla... Ok so why am I telling you this story? ...well it occurred to me that this is essentially the same thing Social CRM or web 2.0 and Social Media is doing but on a much grander scale. The blogosphere started this with an often strong opinionated writer posting articles for others to comment on and discuss. I love Linkedin.com and I engage there in several conversations with likeminded experts quite often. It is always fun when someone throws a little red meat into the debate and stirs the emotion. With twitter, social portals, rich media sites like Youtube and UStream etc. and the new promise of Google's WAVE and many other emerging technologies, I think we are seeing even more blurt it our discussion that will eventually shape broader opinions. It has already had a big influence on world politics and social trends but I think we are at the very beginning.

Interesting facts: Twitter grew a massive 1,928 percent in the US from June ’08 to June ’09, now reaching a total of 21 million monthly unique visitors. acebook, which Nielsen recently reported sucks up more time than any other website, leads all social networking sites with 87.3 million unique visitors in June.

Power to the people

This "Green Technology Revolution" of Social CRM or as I have been coining it "Customer Conversation Management = CCM" will bread a new generation of transparency , "power to the people" and consensus opinions. I am sure there will be plenty of sheep and wolves in the mix but in general I think folks already trust a more real conversation with less "slick" production value. Not that we should degenerate our messages or deliver poor quality media to communicate with our customers but they will be looking more for the honesty, emotion and compelling information in your message vs the slick presentation.  I think the days of the snake oil salesman are over since with this transparency it will be hard to get away with not delivering the best possible customer service or pulling off bait and switch transactions. Overall the customers have access to more information and will more and more over time dictating the terms of the transaction since they have instant access to global competition. This is going to push vendors to be more proactive in delivering value and honing their knowledge resources to provide the best possible customer engagement. This is a good opportunity for CRM venders since small and large businesses alike will need these tools to ride the wave and keep track of everything in a centralized web space.

The customer has the answers already

Getting back to my point about the conversation, my wife just took a coaching/mentoring class and I interact with a lot of coaches daily online and via the phone. One of the things a good coach or councilor does is to get you talking about your pains and troubles. They realize that you actually have the answers to your own challenges and if they can guide you and get you to convince yourself of the best solutions or what you need to do to achieve them, then they achive success. In turn this means that they will have delivered to you a service of value.  Social media is much like these therapy sessions if you use them right.

Why is twitter and Social CRM important to me?

I often get asked "what is twitter? I don't get it! Why do I want to hear about when someone goes to the mall or gets a cup of coffee?". Well let me give you an example. I started on twitter to promote our blog. What I wanted to do is not have a conversation with myself and unless you are wired up with some kind of networking group essentially a blog can be a very lonely place. So I started posting ideas here for review and sent tweets out to let folks know the information was here. Cool so not some folks are reading the blog but how does this add value to my business. Well I think in this socially aware globalized world we live in that folks are getting very tired of sales pitches. I know I am.

Back to the future... and you find get to the basics

Think about how business was done in the old days. You would join a social club, find out how you could network with folks in the club to build a relationship with a customer and then you would try to win their trust or get an endorsement and usually if you had the product or service they needed you could be on their priority list for engagement. Humm... sound familiar? Is this not what linked in and other social networking communities do? More and more I think we will see paradigm shifts on how Chambers and other associations or business groups interact with their constituents.

More than listening with a glass against the wall

With twitter we are having micro conversations with a larger more casual audience and brining them if interested into a conversation of more depth and meaning. Then if they are further interested we are able to engage in a more personal conversation via phone or email exchange. Then we go through somewhat of a Value Building proposition or needs assessment and the quality of the relationship right out of the shoot is much stronger and more meaningful.  The next step is to deliver on our promises and with this we have a better chance of healthy loyal customer relationships.

Customer Conversation Management

If we were to equate this to our personal relationships, think about the dating scene as the advertising world. We slick up our product and go to a night club to show off our wears... (push our product) then we hope there is an attraction and we connect. This often leads to a superficial or short lived relationship but rarely a long term meaningful engagement. Are not the best relationships start as friends and are built on trust and compassionate listening?

On the other hand with the right web tools and social network a dating portal can connect you with likeminded folks and in many ways prescreen your candidates. All you sales guru's surly appreciate more qualified leads to begin your conversation with. So when you look at Social CRM we are essentially talking about tools that manage the conversations that manage the relationships we want to build with our customers. I like to call this "Customer Conversation Management" or "CCM" of you like acronyms.

Do you need a new partner?

Since you have now read this article I have to ask if you want to join our conversation. My hope is that you will appreciate what we are saying and can contribute and share your ideas. If together we can form a consensus perhaps in the future we can talk about where we could add value to your business goals.

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