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Way back in early 2008 (has it really been that long?), Michelle and I collaborated on what was then the second of our BatchBlue Blue Papers. Blue Papers, if you’re not familiar, are like white papers. Only… you know… blue. The paper was called Social Media for Small Business. It served as a primer for small business owners wondering how (or even if) they should get their businesses involved in social media.
Since 18 months is an eternity in the social media world, we decided it was time for an update. Some of the highlights:
- We expanded the Twitter section. This was necessary since in the last version we talked about how we were still skeptical of Twitter’s business applications. How the times have changed! The updates include discussion of tweet chats (like SBBUZZ!) and hashtags.
- In the social networking space, Facebook was brought to the forefront and MySpace was downplayed. When this was originally written, Facebook applications were all the rage. Remember those?
- We added StumbleUpon, a site that was totally left out of the first version.
Of course, a bunch of other minor changes were made. Please take a look at the new version of Social Media for Small Business. If you prefer your reading on paper instead of pixels, it has a nice print style sheet as well!
Tags: blogger, blue paper, delicious, digg, facebook, linkedin, myspace, Social Media, stumbleupon, twitter, wikipedia, wordpress
Last year, for quite a while, it seem as though we were churning out feature updates for BatchBook at a dizzying pace. These weren’t enormous new features, but just smaller updates that simply made the lives of our users easier. Since the start of 2009, however, we’ve been busy on a few rather major updates. Some have launched (like our integrations with FreshBooks and Shoeboxed), some are in beta (like Google Contacts sync), and some haven’t been released yet (I’m not telling!).
The month of June has been a welcome return to the “flurry of updates” release schedule. Over at the BatchBook forums, Keri posts detailed notes about product releases. Today, I wanted to tell you about the “Greatest Hits” from these updates.
Batch Updating of SuperTags
Ever want to update the SuperTag field on dozens of contacts at once? Use the checkboxes on the Browse Contacts page to select a whole bunch of contacts (tip: filter by tag first!) and choose the “edit SuperTag field” batch action. With a couple quick clicks, you can update hundreds of contacts at a time!
Google Contacts 1-way Sync
Sean posted an update on the forums about Google Contacts sync becoming a one-way sync.
More Ways to Filter and Search
We known your contact list can grow quite large. Ours sure has! That’s why we’ve added a whole bunch of new ways to filter and search your contacts. Many of these were very popular requests on the forums.
- New Browse Contacts filter: Not contacted in past month: Will filter your contacts to show only those you have logged a communication with in the past month.
- New Browse Contacts filter: Not contacted: Will filter your contacts to show only those you have never logged a communication with.
- Advanced Search: Contact Type: In addition to “Individuals” and “Companies”, we now have an option for “Individuals & Companies”. Why? Because we also have one just for “Communications”!
- Advanced Search: Record Created: Search for records by date they were created. You can search for an exact date or for records created before or after a certain date. (Tip: Use multiple search criteria to search before a certain date and after another date to get a specific window of time).
- Advanced Search: Record Last Updated: Search for records based on the last time they were updated.
- Advanced Search: Record Last Communicated With: Search for contacts based on the last time you logged a communication with them (including an option for “never”.
Twitter and Google Search Widgets for all!
The live-updating Twitter Search and Google Search Dashboard widgets are now available for free accounts as well. Monitor your personal brand, your company brand, your competitors or your industry at large right on your BatchBook Dashboard!
New Dashboard widget: Lists View
This brand new widget gives you a dropdown menu of all Lists in your BatchBook account. Pick a list and see the contacts. There’s also one-click access to the List Report.
LinkedIn now part of Social Media SuperTag
As reported last week, LinkedIn profiles are now officially part of the Social Media SuperTag.
Default Tags & SuperTags
Last but not least, this is another popular one from the forums. Affectionately code-named “sticky tags” by forumgoers, you can now choose a tag or tags to be automatically applied to all contacts (or all individuals or all companies).
We hope you’ve enjoyed the recent updates. We promise more will come soon!
Want to see the complete list of updates?
Tags: linkedin, small business CRM, social crm, Social Media, supertags
One of my favorite BatchBook features is the Social Media SuperTag. This week, we enhanced it by adding support for LinkedIn profiles. All you have to is enter address to a public LinkedIn profile. When you save it, we’ll replace the link with a widget that looks a lot like this:
Out of the box, the Social Media SuperTag allows you to enter a contacts usernames on Twitter, Flickr, or Delicious and we’ll show the last three tweets, photos, or bookmarks. You can also enter a Blog feed and see excerpts of the last three posts. This will actually work for any RSS feed. In the screencast below, I add a Slideshare presentations, Last.fm recent tracks, and BatchBook forum feeds to a contact record.
We think this is a great way to see what’s on the mind of your most valuable contacts right before you pick up the phone or start that email. Watch below to see the Social Media SuperTag in action!
Screencast: Social media integration with the Social Media SuperTag
The Flash Video runs 5:18 and is 34.9MB. (Download iPod compatible version, 17.5MB)
Tags: delicious, flickr, linkedin, rss, small business CRM, social crm, Social Media, supertags, twitter
We feel so strongly about finding the best tools and procedures for turning our customer’s conversations into new product features that we convinced a few of our high-profile friends to join us in telling some inside secrets. And they are doing it publicly (if we can get your help voting us in!) as part of the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Conference’s panel discussion titled “Customer Service is the New RD.”
The current lineup includes:
- Sean Ransom, BatchBlue.com
- Sunir Shah, FreshBooks.com
- Mario Sundar, LinkedIn.com
- Lane Becker, GetSatisfaction.com
The plan is to talk with these folks about the tools they are using to connect with customers and how these conversations are integrated back into the product development process. It’s easy to say you are listening to your customers, but unless you can act on what they are saying and give them what they need it is not a very productive conversation.
But listening is not an easy task when conversations are happening in so many different places. Proving the point, Lane volunteered himself for this panel when he read our description on the conference’s interactive panel picker and submitted a comment. Now we get to meet (and pick the brain of) a really cool guy who’s built an entire company around being constructive with customer feedback.
The SXSW Conference itself is a model in positive customer interaction. Though they receive 1000s of submissions for panel ideas, they review each individually and send a PERSONAL NOTE to each potential panelist. As Hugh at SXSW so nicely put it, “in the inter-connected web world, the more that you can do to provide top quality customer service . . the more likely that your business will survive and prosper.”
We love this conference and are excited to see what the online community helps them develop as their next product; the 2009 show.
And a few of our recommendations:
- And our own resident geeky do-gooder Michelle Riggen Ransom submitted a SXSW panel idea exploring ways folks are using “Social Media for Social Change.”
- And Adam highlights some great choices on his personal blog.
Please remember to add your voice by voting for your favorite panels. It’s a great way as a customer to Always Be Talking!
Tags: batchblue, Customer Service, freshbooks, get satisfaction, linkedin, SXSW, SXSW09, SXSWi
Last year, Michelle and I attended the South By Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, TX. It was an inspiring experience on many levels, and as soon as we left we knew we wanted to submit a panel for 2008.
And we have! We’ve mentioned many times before that providing top notch customer service is one of the founding principles of our company. We wanted to organize a panel that shows how we (and other companies) are using customer service to help shape the development path of our products (in our case, BatchBook).
Here’s the description:
Customer Service is the New R&D
With forums, Get Satisfaction, good old email support and more, let your early adopters help build your product and create the solution they’ve been searching for. See how boot strapping start-ups (and some past the start-up days) build an online R&D lab to turn 1000+ voices into real features.
The panel will feature some brilliant folks from companies we really admire. Sunir Shah of Freshbooks, Mario Sundar of LinkedIn, and Lane Becker of Get Satisfaction have already expressed interest.
The final SXSW panel lineup is influenced by this online poll, so we’d appreciate your vote!
Tags: batchblue, Customer Service, freshbooks, get satisfaction, linkedin, SXSW, SXSW09, SXSWi
