Metz, The Social Concept

Why The Social CRM Strategies For Business Seminar Is A Lot Like The Velvet Underground's Albums

February 22, 2010

Brian Eno once said that even though hardly anyone bought the Velvet Underground’s albums at the time they first appeared, almost everyone who did formed their own band. The sCRM Summit in Washington DC had a similar vibe. The small conference took place at a snowed-in Westin, a few blocks from… More»

Why We're Getting Certified By Salesforce

January 21, 2010

Yes, you read that right. Next week, I’m going down to Salesforce’s San Mateo office for the week to take my ADM201 training course and exam. The reason we’re doing this is simple. Most of our clients are in the $100-$500M range, and we typically work with medium-sized consumer brands.… More»

Accidentally Like A Martyr: Twitter Advertising & How To Prepare Your Consumer Brand For This Sub-Strategy

Posted at 08:57AM in crm, social crm, twitter • Permalink • No Comments

November 23, 2009

Last week was a big week on the social web, especially for large consumer brands. Last Friday, 72 hours after the announcement of Salesforce’s groundbreaking Chatter product (in-house social customer management for SMB/enterprise), Twitter COO Dick Costolo announced that Twitter will turn on an advertising model. According to TechCrunch… More»

Live-Blogging: Social Innovation In The Cloud #DF09

Posted at 12:41PM in cloud computing, crm, non-profits, small business, social crm, social graph • Permalink • No Comments

November 19, 2009

I’m sitting in my first workshop of the day, Social Innovation In The Cloud (yes, I slept through my two 7:30s, but I’ll catch the replay). This session is largely populated by non-profits who are using cloud-based applications, workflow and CRM (for fundraising). We began with James Bullard, the director of… More»

Salesforce Launches Chatter: Full-Scale Social Media For SMB/Enterprise

Posted at 05:40PM in crm, social crm, social graph • Permalink • 1 Comment

November 18, 2009

If Pink Floyd ran an enterprise software company, it would be Salesforce. If Pink Floyd’s crazed fans ran a social sales and customer service platform, it probably look something like Salesforce Chatter. At about 11:30 a.m. this morning, Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff announced Chatter, a social collaboration platform.… More»

Top Ten Twitters To Follow at Dreamforce (#DF09)

Posted at 03:00PM in crm, dreamforce • Permalink • 3 Comments

November 18, 2009

Here’s a solid mix of analysts, bloggers, brands, and software stakeholders that we’ve been jamming with on Twitter since the Dreamforce Conference began yesterday. Follow them to stay on top of all of the killer sessions and meetings at the conference. 1. DestinationCRM 2. thekenyeung 3. marcbenioff 4. lager 5. marcusnelson 6. rgreenburg 7. Chili_The_Dog (My neighbor… More»

The Metz Guide To Dreamforce

Posted at 06:34PM in crm, dreamforce • Permalink • No Comments

November 13, 2009

If you want to shadow me and basically attend every session that I attend at the Salesforce Dreamforce conference, my itinerary is here . Expect a ton of courses on social media integration and computer telephony integration (CTI), aimed squarely at consumer brands.

Social Customer Management Quiz For Hospitality Brands (eHotelier)

Posted at 10:18PM in crm, hospitality, social crm • Permalink • No Comments

October 19, 2009

We just published our first article in eHotelier, and it’s a quiz on social customer management. To see how much your hospitality brand knows about managing customer data from the social web, click here .

Sage Quietly Launches Social Media Integration Into ACT! 2010

Posted at 09:51AM in crm, small business • Permalink • No Comments

October 8, 2009

It’s always exciting when a brand that’s primarily known for enterprise resource planning (ERP) software like Sage comes out with a product aimed at helping small businesses succeed on the social web. The brand has also published a basic guide to the social web, aimed at small business.… More»

The Metz Social CRM (and Beer) Guide To Oracle OpenWorld

Posted at 11:05AM in are you kidding, beer, business social, cmo, crm • Permalink • No Comments

October 7, 2009

Okay, so you want to go to Oracle’s OpenWorld conference, but you only want to get the “social” side of things? Follow this itinerary. You might want to at least grab a ticket , as discounts end this Friday. If you really want to check out most of these specialized… More»

Only 3 More Weeks Till OpenWorld

Posted at 12:39PM in crm, social media • Permalink • No Comments

September 29, 2009

If you live within an hour of the Bay Area, there’s pretty much no excuse not to check out Oracle’s OpenWorld conference. No, they don’t have the Black Crowes playing like some of their competitors do, but they have an amazing price for folks who are just thinking… More»

Fox Rent A Car Employees Reach out Using Yelp

Posted at 01:40PM in are you kidding, crm, social media • Permalink • No Comments

September 24, 2009

Hello Fox Rent A Car . I’ve used your services two or three times. In my most recent experience, I had somewhat of a negative experience, which I wrote up on review site Yelp . It looks like one of your employees just contacted me on Yelp, to clarify the situation,… More»

Download Thursday's Twitter Conference Keynote

Posted at 10:47AM in conference, crm, twitter • Permalink • No Comments

September 22, 2009

If you’d like to grab a complimentary copy of Thursday’s Twitter Conference Keynote – Ka-Ching! Revenue Strategies with Twitter & Customer Relationship Management Integration – send us an email between now and end-of-day Thursday. We normally sell these presentations for $25, post-event, but we’ll be giving them away for… More»

We're Writing for eHotelier

Posted at 03:16PM in crm, hotel, travel • Permalink • No Comments

September 17, 2009

We’re pleased to announce that I will begin writing a column on social customer relationship management for the popular hospitality sales and marketing website eHotelier . The first column, a quiz on social customer readiness, will be published on October 5th, and articles and columns will appear about once monthly… More»

How Not To Blow $75,432: Consumer-Brand Social Mobile Commerce

Posted at 09:56AM in business social, crm, mobile, social media • Permalink • No Comments

July 9, 2009

We have lots of clients who have wanted to explore the mobile platform. Nothing wrong with that. These social/mobile engagements run about $12-50k each — hard cost. Inclusive of administrative soft-cost, (a marketing manager at $70k, working half-time for 2-3 months), we’re talking about a $25k-75k investment. That means that if… More»

Loving Your Haters: Embracing Negativity on The Social Web, Part One

Posted at 09:55AM in business social, crm • Permalink • 1 Comment

July 7, 2009

Good job, your brand is at the point where it’s getting noticed on the social web. Hits are coming in to your destination web site. Your Attention metric is surging. Hold it. Don’t get over-excited. With growth comes negative reactions too. So what to do? It… More»

4 Learnings On (Diverse) Community Management

Posted at 12:21PM in crm • Permalink • No Comments

November 28, 2008

I’m the last guy to write a book on community management. I’m not a veteran community manager, but I have frequently designed social spaces on the Internet for large, diverse groups to hang out in, and I’ve seen a number of communities unfold, mostly positively. Recently I had the experience… More»