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Deal Reg 2.0 – XeeSM New Social Relationship Management Tool | In My Opinion

February 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment

A tag cloud with terms related to Web 2.

According to Axel Schultze, founder of Social Media Academy, “deal registration” has become one of the key program elements for high tech channels. However the many different systems, different processes on one side and the fact that channel partners have to enter deals multiple times are reasons for a rather slow adoption. Traditional online registrations forms are rather unattractive to system integrators, VARs or resellers.

XeeReg may be a new opportunity for large and even small vendors.  The new web 2.0 style application is based on a radical new concept. Learn about the new way of multi vendor deal registration March , 2nd – 09:00 (PST)

via Deal Reg 2.0 (March 2) – XeeSM.

Having worked with customer relationship management tools for the past 25 plus years, I have formed my own opinion of which ones worked or didn’t.  [Disclosure] I have been fortunate to get involved with the Xeesm Beta program, testing out the functionality of the tool at several levels and have been pleased at the way the tool is helping me manage my social space.

At its most basic level the tool lets me manage the many links to my profile pages, website, blogs, LinkedIn groups and social networking sites.

At the Pro version, you can begin to collect groups of people and track activities in social spaces based on goals you set.  The next level of service is opportunity management.  If you are interested in learning more about how Social Relationship Management can be different than your experiences with CRM, you should pay attention to Xeesm.

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Filed Under: In My Opinion, Social Media Strategy, Social Media Tools, Web 2.0 Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

How to participate in the social web

October 7, 2009 By 3 Comments
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Social Media Academy’s NCP Model

I follow the Social Media Academy’s NCP model which stands for Network Contribution Participation.b4nature_landscapes015

Network provides the reach for your message and connection to people in your social ecosystem.

Its about growing your network by connecting with people in various places.

Contribution is the active engagement and content contribution over such networks. Conversation is the currency in social media.

It can be blogs, articles, pictures, videos or podcasts.

Participation is the positive or negative reflection of the contribution and the actual conversation.

So you have to speak up in new areas, comment on others blogs, and add to the color of the conversation with your very own twist in the fabric.

Networking

You start the process with Networking.  I do great at networking and growing my network. At first it was slow on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.  Now, they each have a mind of their own with an almost organic growth that has taken over.

Since I do a lot of public speaking on social media, this has provided added stimulus to the growth, maybe greater than most users would find.  I have not done much with TopLinked or some of the speed networking opportunities yet on LinkedIn, rather I wanted to work hard at this myself and truly know the work involved.

Now I can expand further my network in several new areas such as YouTube, Flickr, Picasa, and Slideshare.  These will provide a different type of space and I am looking forward to who I connect with there as well. Some will be professional, but I suspect it will allow me to enter new relationships that aren’t the same as those that connect with me and the written word.

Contribution

The contribution part of the NCP Model is likely the most difficult for many.  This means writing, folks.  Creating original thoughts and getting them posted in the social space. I wrote community opinion pieces first for my local paper. Then I started with book reviews in a metro business publication, which then transferred to an online forum for greater reach.

I was asked to provide quest posts on several social media blogs.  This was the hardest step because I was offering knowledge to my peers.  I am not sure anyone is listening to those posts yet, but I find that I do have a unique perspective that provides another facet of conversation in the business community.

Then came my own blog (Network Mindshare).  This is hard work – no doubt about it.  Being creative in coming up with ideas is not the problem, it’s deciding what to write about the idea!

Last but not least, I also took on the challenge of a social media column in an online newspaper.  More deadlines, a different writing style and another shift in the audience. Good for the network.

Participation

Participation in the social web is the final piece of the NCP Model.  You just can’t shout out your opinions in a one way megaphone.

You need to actively search out and read others who have shared their opinions on topics that are of interest.  Don’t just read these, you must comment.  Your thoughts can support, express a contrary point of view, offer explanation, share examples, express frustration, ask further questions, offer solutions or just compliment the post.

The key is engagement and you can’t do that without putting those thoughts in writing.

Thoughts on Blogs

I am trying a technique to make sure that I continue effectively on the participation side of the NCP Model.  Each week I have set a goal to comment on at least three different blogs.  In order to find the blogs, I have Google Alerts set on keywords that I researched using the Google Keyword Tool.  I share comments on these blogs and keep track of them using the Social Relationship Management tool www.xeesm.com/wendysoucie, which lets me search for all references I have made (after using that link) and I will pick out several and post them.  I will include them in a new blog category called “Thoughts on Blogs.”

Perhaps you have a blog that I should read and on which I should offer my opinion?  Comment here with the link and I will check it out.

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Filed Under: Business Blogging, Inbound Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Academy, Social Media Strategy, Social Media Tools, Thoughts on Blogs, Web 2.0 Tagged With: , , , ,

Want a social media education? Five reasons you should!

September 27, 2009 By Leave a Comment

If you are interested at all in tools that can be used for social media engagement, tracking, reporting, research, and management then you should attend the virtual conference Social Media Tools Week. Here are five reasons why:

SMTW-Logo_80x811. Social Media Academy is organizing conference

Organized by the Social Media Academy, the premier educator for social media for business, this is a whole week packed with the newest and most compelling Social Media tools from around the world, key note presentations and career development sessions. Probably the most important Social Media Event of the year. If you register before Oct 15, you will still get a free ticket to attend.  I noted on the Website that after that time it will be a $35 fee.

The Social Media Academy is an education and research institute providing education for business professionals from all industries on how to best apply social media to their respective businesses. The main emphasis is to help business managers and consultants to get a comprehensive education on Social Media, including strategy development, planning, execution, tools, resources ways to report and analyze development and success and help understand the evolutionary changes in our society. As part of the educational development, the Social Media Academy conducts research exploring the ongoing changes in the field and supports the continuous learning process as well as monitor ongoing changes in the field.

2. Learn about social media strategy for business owners and management teams

After reviewing the program for the week, I found topics that include core basics such as  assessments of your social media landscape, strategy building, tools and platforms for corporate enterprises as well as those for small and midsized business.  If your company is asking the questions “How do we get started in social media?”  this would be the ideal place to get your company management team to invest some time.

Presentations cover public and private communities and structure as well as discussion on what departmental areas suit different types of communities. If you already had dipped your toe in the water, but are looking for better guidance, policy and measurement strategies I think the speakers will provide some interesting insight.

3. Explore social media tools

Are you looking for a place to hear about existing tools as well as the latest applications that enhance each of the major sites we do know about such as Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter?  This portion of the Social Media Tools week could be very important for you if your looking for that one additional tool to enhance a social media campaign or one that aligns with your target audience.  On the registration page you can see a list of 160 social media tools to get you started.  And those are only the ones who sent their information in early for the listing.

If you are already started down the path of using social media but want to explore content systems, blog platforms (free and paid) and more in depth knowledge on the types of tools such as multimedia, bookmarking, news aggregation, article sites, or social networking I don’t think you could find a better group of speakers offering info about what’s out there.

4. Learn about Social Media Relationship Management (SRM)

One of the most exciting parts in social media development is the creation of social media relationship management systems and tools that can better track and coordinate your efforts in the various social media spaces.  Today we have several tools that help us post to multiple places and that certainly saves time.  But the bigger pictures is a tool that would help us truly manage all the people in our networks in terms of when we last  connected.  Ideally these tools will integrate with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems already in place behind your firewalls.  Several presentations will cover this area and I am planning to attend these.

5. Get information on a social media career

Aside from all the info on the how, why and what for social media, there is also a track covering education in this field to better enhance your career in social media with your present company or add to your credentials for the next position.  Let’s face it, social media is here to stay.  We all need to understand how to use it to our best advantage in business and personally. This is not an area to make a mistake as it can go viral very quickly.  It’s also not an area to dismiss for your business – your competitors are not.

Must Attend Social Media Tools Week Virtual Conference!

Must Attend Social Media Tools Week Virtual Conference!

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Filed Under: Linkedin, Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Academy, Social Media Strategy, Social Media Tools, Web 2.0 Tagged With: , , ,

What I learned at the Midwest Internet Marketing Super Conference

September 13, 2009 By Leave a Comment

As you can see from my twitter update this week I spent some time at the Midwest Internet Marketing Super Conference investing in Internet Marketing and Social Media education. I attended because the CEO and VP of Integrated Alliances were presenting on “How to Make Money Using Social Media with LinkedIn.”

Mike O'Neil and Lori Ruff of Integrated Alliances during their presentation

Mike O'Neil and Lori Ruff of Integrated Alliances during their presentation

Another reason that I wanted to attend was to hear one particular speak named Joel Bauer.  The benefit I got this weekend was also hearing Perry Belcher talk about Twitter and his approach as well as Dr. Harlan Kilstein talking about NLP Copywriting. This was my first opportunity to tweet live during a meeting about key points.  By following the Twitter hashtag #MSC I could follow what points others were making as well.

I can see where some of the new Twitter conference applications coming out can really make this more of a social experience and let the group attending exchange even more thoughts before during and after a conference of this type.  Recently OmniPress in Madison introduced Conference 2.0 – a community conference Web 2.0 introduction that should bring an improvement to the conference circuit on a communication level.

I recently had the opportunity to view a demo of this new software and was impressed  with the feature that lets you connect with the speakers ahead of time as well as to ask questions afterward.  The benefits of that feature are pretty obvious.  Have ever been to a large conference with multiple presentations that you feel you must attend?  Plenty of times I have been unable or unwilling to wait in the line to ask a more private question of the speaker. This would give me the chance to send it later, or for those of us who might bring our laptop, Iphone, or smartphone to the conference – email, tweet or post a question for the speaker immediately.

Back to the conference, and of particular interest to me, were the variety of approaches and ways to incorporate social media tools into a particular business strategy. The top point everyone made was absolutely to have a strategy that fits your business goals, pick the tools that help you, and build your network in a meaningful way.

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Filed Under: Business Development, Inbound Marketing, Internet Marketing, Linkedin, Marketing, Social Media Tools, Twitter, Web 2.0 Tagged With: , ,

How to Simplify Your Social Media Links

August 24, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Has your social media link list been growing as you become more engaged in social media of all types and sizes? How do you choose which ones to put on your email, list on your website, attach to your blog, or link on Twitter?

New software is available and making these decisions easier every day. Recently I have had the opportunity to be part of a group using a BETA software called www.xeesm.com which is providing me a place to consolidate my growing number of social media links.

What to do about business cards

I was just beginning to sweat about my new business cards and how to read everything I wanted to put on them.  Somehow a 5×7 card to hand out just doesn’t fit as well in a  pocket.

The email links in my signature line was growing from just a website and LinkedIn profile, to 5 or 6 I thought were important. My glasses weren’t helping either.

I now have a new option from www.xeesm.com. They even seem to listen to suggestions because already 2 or 3 of the sticky points I pointed out have already been taken care of.  One of my suggestions was prefilling the social media configuration for each common social media link.  I can’t always remember how each URL is setup and the change made it easier to fill in just my profile name.

Social Media Link Consolidation

So far I have just ten links added here. The effort actually made me review all my social media profiles and begin to clean up a few so they were consistent.  I also had to decide if I do want every one located there.  I guess some are ones that people just don’t need to find.  Easy enough to add over time when I have time.

Reporting

I like the reporting, although basic,  because it allows me to see my changes over time.

Wendy Soucie www.xeesm.com report

Wendy Soucie www.xeesm.com report

Since I started the test, they have added more networking functions but I am just beginning to explore those.

Another review of this software on Talent Zoo by Jeff Cotrupe (www.xeesm.com/Jeff) highlighted the fact that you can’t reorganize the social media sites in the list.  I also found that I couldn’t add my own that weren’t already in the list.  I am sure they are working on some of that but we will see.

In the meantime, my contacts have been giving me good feedback on my links and thoughts on the site.  Many have chosen to sign up as well.

I will update my report once a month to check out my visits.

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Filed Under: Facebook for Business, Internet Marketing, Linkedin, Marketing, Plaxo, Reputation Management, Social Media, Social Media Academy, Social Media Strategy, Social Media Tools, Tips and Techniques, Twitter, Web 2.0 Tagged With: ,