I must admit being pleasantly surprised by this new application. SalesForce Inc. is helping corporations harness the real power of social networks — namely the Twitter community. Comcast has been a model in providing solutions to customer problems via Twitter, and is one of the first customers of SalesForce Inc’s new app.

It basically seems to be a way to easily track conversations on Twitter, and is not the only app to provide tracking, but could be the most expensive. Pricing is ”$995 a month for five agents and five business partners, and support for 250 customers.”

Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang wrote about the possibilities for Twitter if it were to create it’s own CRM/brand management tool on his Web Strategist blog.

Read the full BizJournals.com article about SalesForce Inc’s new Twitter CRM app here: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/othercities/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/03/23/daily4.html?

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I happen to love the attention I get from personal brands. There’s nothing like feeling that you’ve been singled out to be chatted up by a Tony Hsieh — CEO of Zappos.com, or Gavy Vaynerchuk from WineLibrary.tv, or any of the many personal brands who are active on social networks.

That’s just one upside…and for me, it’s all personal.

Well, actually, as smart companies know, it’s not all personal. Good one-on-one interaction is good business.

It makes it easy for consumers to choose that company’s products and service offerings. So much beauty in social networking — companies engage in online conversations and customer communities to boost business! Who doesn’t love to feel like they’re getting personally heard from a company representative? It’s so Mom & Pop, but with much better, faster service due to the internet.

So what’s the downside?

The sole person behind a personal brand simply cannot maintain the same level of personal interaction a team who is representing a company can. So, one day a ‘lone cowboy’ personal brand may interact heavily with customers and prospects. The next day, business obligations may prevent any interaction at all.

For some customers, this is just enough for them to loudly proclaim to their social network that Company X sucks because Personal Brand at Company X ignored their pleas for product support, or whatever. You get the idea.

From a customer standpoint, personal brands can potentially cause more brand damage than good for the company. Customers demand attention when they want it, and don’t give a flying flip about anything else that may be more pressing to personal brand respresentative. Upset customers vent all over the internet. The reputation management fallout is a lot more expensive for companies than simply hiring a team to help manage their brand online.

This is all just common sense. Companies, if one of your star employees is looking to become a star on the internet, seriously consider whether it’s in your company’s best interests to support that during work hours. If you decide that your business will thrive by having one shining star out of your employees represent it, definitely develop a contingency plan — a Social Media Brand Management Plan B, if you will, in the unfortunate event of that employee’s exit from the company.

Considering the precarious nature of managing your brand via Social Media in the first place, what should your Social Media Brand Management Plan B entail? Here’s a few, for starters:

• Immediate team brand deployment to regain control of conversations regarding your brand.
• Company branded Twitter, Facebook, etc, social network accounts.
• Full access to conversations and contacts made by your previous social media star

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If you live in Utah and use Twitter, please join us for this Tweetup event to network and meet some great Sundance representatives in person. We’re also welcoming a mystery guest speaker. You can expect to meet a new media filmmaker or a filmmaker that has used Social Media extensively in their film’s promotion, or perhaps an actor at the Fest who is a prominent Twitter user. You’ll be surprised and have a lot of fun chatting with our mystery guest!

Laptops, mobile phones and cameras encouraged — it’s a Tweetup! Feel free to tweet the event. We don’t mind at all! See you there!

Date: Tuesday January 20, 2009 at 7:00pm
Location: Beehive Tearoom (Festival Cafe)
Address: 12 W Broadway, Salt Lake City, 84101

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Brian Solis from PR 2.0 has published a comprehensive list of Twitter tools for community managers and communications professionals. Businesses implementing a social media strategy will find a wealth of value from this list of tools, and by using them in a way that creates transparency and authenticity.

One reason I haven’t spent a lot of time on this blog writing about social media tools is because the old habits of marketing die hard with regard to using tools. SEO/SEM seems to have lulled marketers into laziness with all of the automated tools that merely require setup and monitoring. Twitter — and all social media, to be sure — requires actual engagement with the users of the media. That requires authenticty, transparency, and not hiding behind an organizational brand. In the past, I’ve found the most effective way of helping businesses understand how Social Media is different was to train them on the culture of Social Media and to incorporate that culture into their organizational communications. Now that many businesses are starting to understand this concept of transparency and open communication, more and more businesses are intelligently using the tools available for social media to improve their customer communications. So, I list these tools with the caveat that effective use of them by organizations require a real understanding of the Twitter culture of openness.

How to best use this list of Twitter tools:

• Develop a Twitter strategy with the help of a Social Media consultant
• Tie your Twitter strategy into a larger Social Media strategy
• Choose the tools which uniquely fit into your communications strategy
• Always keep a spirit of transparency and 2-way communication foremost, as some of the tools can create broadcast type messages which annoy and alienate many social media users

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“From the last seven years of polling, we’ve found that what older people like best about the Internet is being able to connect to family and friends,” — Susannah Fox — Pew Internet & American Life Project and the Kaiser Family Foundation

New family social networks are popping up almost every day. The real draw to these sites for Boomers seems to be the huge disconnections families have these days. More families are geographically separated from each other than ever before. With the holiday season rapidly approaching, the family event coordinator (usually a Boomer) is looking to the internet to connect geographically distant family members. Family is a big deal to Boomers, and family social networks provide an easy way to gather the family group together again.

Boomers also feel a need to pass on to their family and the next generation the story of where they began. So family social networks are not only a place to connect socially, but they’re also a place to discover your family’s past, and discover yourself in the process.

In meeting with family social networking executives recently, I’m finding that one of hottest trends in family social networks is in the field of DNA social networking. I recently spoke to a company whose USP is based on having a large database of DNA results for users to access. There’s huge potential in this area of social networking. So much so that Google recently invested $3.9 million in a DNA social networking startup called 23andMe. The goal of DNA social networking sites like this is to help users gain a better understanding of their genetic information, and track down lost or distant relatives.

Famiva.com

Famiva Home Page

Famiva  just had a major update over the weekend, and the look is clean and appealing.  Within Famiva, users can work with family members on a secure site to “build your family tree, share photos and stories, stay current with family events and reminders, and much more.” What Boomers will like about Famiva is how easy it is. There’s no sign-up required and has really great features to capture genealogy as well as connect current family.They also have a great tour which makes it easy to know exactly what to expect from the network.

Genoom.com
Genoom is an innovative site with a bevy of tools to create private family networks. Genoom helps family researchers not only learn about their past, but connect family together for current events and create digital heirlooms for future generations.

Geni.com
Geni  is a great great family social network which helps users trace their family roots. Geni also has the family tree, photo sharing, and event calendar of other family social networks, but it also allows users to add family friends as “friends of your family tree”.

Obviously, boomers are becoming more active in social media, one study last year cites that 45% of boomers online are using family social networks. What does this mean for businesses looking to advertise on social media? Don’t count out baby boomers in your social advertising plans. They’ve got financial strength that many Gen Y and X don’t have yet, so if your product or service has any overlap for the boomer generation, either as users or buyers, make them the focus of some of your marketing efforts.

If you’re ready to create a social media marketing strategy, and would like to see how you can incorporate boomers into that strategy, contact me. Let’s talk about how we can work together to help you reach your goals.

ghennipher [at] ghennipher.net

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Here’s the Tweetup details — we’d love to have any Twitter friends, old or new:

Coffee Break
435 E 400 S
Salt Lake City, UT
7 PM -

I’ll be uploading photos of the Tweetup soon, and here’s a little advance notice — we’ve got a very special Tweetup planned for October 20. Please clear your calendar and join us.

See you at the Tweetup!

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Overstock.com
I just caught an article in Utah Business by Overstock.com’s PR Director Brian Watkins giving advice to Utah businesses about implementing social media in their marketing mix. He basically gave them the direction to start strategically and simple. However, Overstock.com implements a robust and successful social media marketing strategy. They’ve got a lively online community of customers who communicate with Overstock.com community leaders and each other.

I don’t know the evolution of Overstock.com’s social media strategy, but I’ve actually worked as a consultant to Overstock on a conversion project in the past, and I know they (under the leadership of CEO Patrick Byrne) are an innovative and smart company — despite the ups and downs most corporations face. Actually, with a CEO as involved in offline Social Activism as Patrick Byrne is, it makes sense his company would be equally involved socially online. Patrick’s drive to be connected in the community seems to have spilled over in his business philosophy. As a result, Overstock.com not only sells great products at great prices through the web site, but the company has devloped a community of devotees, much like Ebay has done with it’s communities.

Overstock.com is a great example of how social media marketing via communities works to boost sales and increase customer loyalty when companies allocate a reasonable budget and focused strategy to Social Media. Patrick Byrne has built a corporation which embraces social media and is the perfect blueprint for other companies serious about utilizing the strength of social media for their brand. I’d personally like to invite Overstock.com to enter the Corporate Socializers Program . This is a program for the Best of the Best in Social Media Marketing.  The most creative and innovative entrants will be listed in the Social Corps book as a case study.

Entry into the contest is open to corporations successfully utilizing social media in their PR/Marketing strategy. So corporate social media people: Corporate Socializers competiton entires due Sept. 15, check it out!

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Why enter the Corporate Socializers competition? The competition is described as “a program designed to recognize communications professionals who have implemented innovative and effective corporate social media.” In this Wild West era of social media, recognizing companies who have implemented Best Practices in their Social Media marketing efforts is sorely needed, particularly when there’s investor and shareholder expectations to consider. Companies who have crossed those treacherous waters are encouraged to enter. Corporate communications as a whole benefits from good examples of how to manage social media marketing.

What do winners get? All accepted entries will get mentioned on the Social Corp blog, the official blog for the book. The companies with the best overall results will be mentioned in the Social Corp Book, due out by the end of the year from New Riders, an imprint of PeachPit Press.

How do I enter? Find out the rules and details at the Corporate Socializers Competition blog.

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Of course, on a more practical vein, Paris may be keeping the CEO of MySpace close for some extra security to keep those private photos from always surfacing on MySpace. But then, rumor has it that MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe is her #1 MySpace friend…

Get the full skinny at TechCrunch: The Perks Of Being The MySpace CEO Include, Apparently, Paris Hilton

More on Paris Hilton Spotted with MySpace CEO at BloggersBlog

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Its amazing to me to see the real life implications of online social media. Take the Beijeng Olympics, for example. There are groups of Twitter users meeting together online to dispatch Tweets about what they see offline at the games. These Twitter users will likely meet offline for a meal or drinks, as do many other Twitter user throughout the world.

Social networking has proven itself to be much more than a buzz word in the Internet world. It’s reality. Humans are social creatures, and no matter if we’re tethered to our internet-enabled devices, or perhaps even more so if we’re connected to our internet devices, we crave face to face human interaction. Twitter has made that bridge easier to cross for people of all nationalities during the Beijeng Olympics.

Keep up on some of the Beijeng Twitter happenings here:

#080808 Twitter campaign — started by Chinese Twitter users. One of the best ways to keep up with the excitement

Ogilvy China Digital Watch — There’s tremendous buzz online about the Games, no surprise there, and they’re frantically following all the goings-on.

#080808 Twitter Campaign for Olympics — This is a link to a great collage of #080808 Twitter buddy icons.

This is certainly one of the most exciting events I’ve experienced on Twitter — no doubt due to its global scale. And huge agencies like Olgivy and others are taking the lead in bringing the event to social media networks. I’m looking forward to seeing some of the research strategies that come out of this global social media case study. Exciting!

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