Social CRM

Several months ago Constant Contact became aware that much of its customer base was intrigued by the daily deal model. However, it also noticed that once those companies actually tried out the model, their enthusiasm for it diminished considerably. "Daily deals just don't work for a lot of companies...

By now, it has been drilled into most marketers' heads: Social media is all about conversation -- a two-way conversation. Oftentimes, the conversation entails responding to customers' comments, requests or complaints. From the customer's perspective, it almost certainly means offers of discounts and...

Microsoft is in discussions to acquire Yammer, a social media and communication platform for businesses, according to a report in Bloomberg, which cited two anonymous sources. Microsoft is prepared to acquire the company for a $1 billion purchase price, the report said, and the deal could be reached...

Salesforce.com announced it was buying Buddy Media for nearly $700 million on Monday. In any discussion, that's a lot of money, maybe more than Salesforce has yet spent on any acquisition. What's going on? As you might expect, I see economics playing an important role here, and I think there are ...

The way people and companies decide what to buy is changing, becoming intractably intertwined with social recommendations, noted Sanjay Dholakia, SVP of Marketo's product marketing and corporate development. "This means that consumers and buyers have ability to educate themselves instead of going to...

I was so looking forward to getting the Facebook IPO out of the way, and then splat, like a ripe tomato in the kisser, we have to learn that the underwriters might not have shared some pre-IPO information transparently. Enough already! Bankers appear to be tone deaf to the fallout from their gross...

The trend toward an "always on, always connected" lifestyle driven by the use of social networks and mobile technology has, if nothing else, groomed consumers to become demanding in their expectations of the online experience. Unfortunately, the e-commerce experience has changed little since early d...

Salesforce.com is adding more functionality to its Chatter tool -- in this case, real-time communication capabilities. The two new features soon to be available are Chatter Messenger and Chatter Screensharing. Chatter Messenger is an instant messaging application to be used within the Chatter applic...

I remember being an impatient kid when something I really wanted was on its way. The first time I was aware of my parents mail-ordering something for me -- I think it was a baseball jersey I especially coveted -- I can recall bombarding them with a chorus of the phrase, "when is it going to get here...

Last week was like the fireworks on the Fourth of July. You know how at the end they fire off a huge flourish of explosives, and if you live in Boston for some reason the Boston Pops play "The 1812 Overture?" It was like that minus the Pops. Actually, the crescendo was not limited to last week bu...