Microsoft Dynamics CRM Gets Yammer Integration

Microsoft has been busy lately beefing up the technology supporting its Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform. That was the motive behind the company’s recent purchase of MarketingPilot, and it’s the reason why it’s now announcing native integration with its Yammer enterprise social networking solution.

Yammer, which is part of Microsoft’s Office division, was itself acquired earlier this year. According to Microsoft, it will integrate Yammer and Microsoft Dynamics CRM by embedding the former’s social feeds, along with Follow and Like buttons, into individual CRM records. In addition, when a user takes action on a CRM record, a page will be automatically created in Yammer where employees can discuss, follow and collaborate on the record.

Yammer has also updated its App Directory, which provides connectors for third-party business applications. This includes new integrations from business data provider GoodData, gamification platform Kudos and Salesforce.com.

Eloqua’s Take On The Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Eloqua’s Jesse Noyes just published an interesting blog post offering the company’s take on Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud announcement:
So, what is the “marketing cloud?” Really, salesforce is combining the features and functions of Radian6 and Buddy Media to create a social marketing cloud where social media monitoring, content and advertising are integrated with salesforce’s CRM product. The concept is not that there’s a dileneation between marketing and social marketing, but that all marketing is becoming social marketing.

Eloqua sees a natural affinity between its marketing automation platform and Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud. And I think that’s absolutely true - it does look, at least for now, as if Salesforce wants to keep its own marketing technology efforts closely mapped to its grand vision for the social enterprise - with no forays (or shopping trips) into core marketing automation technology.

That’s a relief, since as Box.net and Okta discovered this week when Salesforce introduced its own, competing document storage and identity management plays, there are both risks and rewards for building these closer relationships.

By the way, Salesforce did a good job of punching big holes in some recent claims that Chatter wasn’t gaining market traction. Clearly it is - Salesforce says Chatter now has more than 170,000 active networks, including half the Fortune 500. Obviously, the marketing cloud IS gaining ground in the enterprise, even if there are some hiccups along the way.

Cracking The Code Of Social Selling

Yesterday I braved the sweltering New York City temperatures to attend an equally heated discussion at the SiriusDecisions Social Selling Forum.

It was a great conversation. Sales and marketing personnel from ADP, Pitney Bowes and SAP, among others, shared their challenges, current initiatives and questions centered on social selling.

Jim Ninivaggi, Service Director, Sales Enablement Strategies, who led the event, noted that what we’re doing in the B2C world as consumers—like using social media and mobile to make more informed decisions — buyers also are doing in the B2B world. This is changing social selling.

The bottom line is that social is a largely untapped goldmine for not just B2B companies, but for marketing and sales reps, particularly. While many companies use social often at the top of the funnel, it also can be sued throughout the journey from cold to close — and beyond.

And as VP and Practice Director of Technology Jonathan Block noted, social media doesn’t lose effectiveness later in the buy cycle — if anything it becomes more important to other initiatives.

The group discussion was particularly interesting, as we talked about using social media to accomplish a number of different things including:

·      The engagement points with B2B buyers, and how they are increasingly empowered upon their first interaction with sales.

Salespeople need to adapt to this shift, and understand directionally, what the buyer is interested in and what the buyer is interested in so they can more efficiently facilitate the discussion, and provide value that helps the buyer understand why they should continue the dialogue, and ultimately make a purchase.

Shifting Sales Environment Creating New Role For Enablement Solutions

·      The organizational structure of social media, and how a lack of centralized ownership has led to an absence of strategy.

To the earlier point, changing sales engagement dynamics calls for a shift in the sales approach, and while most marketing sales organizations have recognized the seismic shift, many have done little to adjust.

·      Applying the SiriusDecisions customer buying lifecycle framework to social strategy.

It’s critical for companies to understand the buying cycle stages, such as education, solution and vendor selection, to determine how social is used in each, as well as the most appropriate engagement resources that salespeople should be providing buyers.

·      The role of social analytics and the need to provide the sales force with training on how to optimize their usage of the tools.

Social monitoring tools can effectively provide powerful market and competitive intelligence. Monitoring should be proactive (research-oriented) and reactive (defense-oriented).

Tapping Into The World Of Social Influence To Drive Sales

·      Governance & policy providing an effective social execution framework.

If you’re going to call your company social, everyone in the organization has to be “socializing,” or leveraging social media, but you can’t expect everyone to know rules without implementing formal policies to help employees leverage social effectively.

 

-Amanda F. Batista

Continue the social selling conversation by following the #sdforum hashtag on Twitter.

Happy Graduation, B2B Social Media!

It’s graduation time! While a slew of early 20-somethings enter the woeful workforce, the B2B world has something else to celebrate: its “graduation” into the social media big leagues. Yesterday’s post highlighted that half of B2B marketers are ignoring social media, but recent industry moves paint an interesting picture: One that indicates a positive progression for B2B social media.

More than four years ago I started writing about B2B and marketing automation. We focused on how companies were implementing a marketing automation process (MAP) and tying it to their demand generation efforts. The cool kids in school were taking it a step further with lead scoring and nurturing initiatives.

The very first article I ever wrote covering the retail space was about how retailers were tapping Facebook and MySpace to connect with their customers. The conversation in Retail TouchPoints centered on getting as many followers as possible. The “strategy” was merely an equation:

Lots of names + an interest in our brand = success.

The B2C conversation evolved from populating social networks to creating a more cohesive, cross channel engagement strategy that connected the dots between e-commerce and brick and mortar. While social commerce rapidly emerged as a result, we couldn’t figure out how to spin the story for DemandGen Report. How do you encourage B2B marketers to engage with their prospective buyers and customers on….Facebook? It didn’t add up.

But now it does.

The recent acquisitions of social media solution providers aren’t just an indicator of the market’s growth— they validate the natural progression we’ve seen in the B2B space. That calls for a graduation celebration, because dare I say it — I believe social media for B2B is finally happening on a grand scale.

To mark the special occasion, here’s a timeline of a few marquee social events covered in DemandGen Report:

 

Q2 2011:

  • We start to see socially-focused product features in marketing automation solutions, such as Silverpop, and Salesforce.com’s acquisition of Radian6 ensues massive buzz.

Q3/late summer 2011:

  • HubSpot acquires social media firm Oneforty and merges its directory of social media applications with the HubSpot App Marketplace.
  • Silverpop partners with Janrain to offer social sign-in capability
  • “The Social Enterprise” takes center stage at Dreamforce 2011, where Salesforce chairman and CEO Marc Benioff introduced a new framework of apps and innovations that leverage social, mobile and open cloud technologies.
  • Vendors take the opportunity to launch social suites at Dreamforce, including Eloqua’s Social Suite

Q3/late fall 2011:

  • Marketing automation vendors across the board, including Pardot, eTrigue and Treehouse Interactive, rolled out a number of socially-focused features and functionality to help marketers integrate social media into their demand creation campaigns.

Q2 2012/late spring 2012:

  • Silverpop launches free Facebook app to help marketers convert “Likes” into revenue.
  • Marketo acquires Crowdfactory and launches social marketing suite
  • Oracle acquires Vitrue, a platform that gives marketers a single set of tools to manage their presence on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube and other social media platforms.
  • Salesforce acquires Buddy Media to combine the platform with Radian6, its social media listening platform, to enable users to listen, engage, gain insight, publish, advertise and measure social marketing programs.
  • HubSpot partnered with HootSuite to help marketers connect social media to generating, managing and nurturing leads — to help marketers “close the loop” on social media marketing.
-Amanda F. Batista

Social Articles Of Interest in DemandGen Report:

Why B2B Marketers Should Embrace Social Sign-In

Tapping Into The World Of Social To Drive Sales

Pinterest and B2B Marketing: Pinning Down The Newest Social Media Player