LinkedIn is the largest business-oriented social networking website with millions of members and growing rapidly. Just as popular, Salesforce.com continues to lead the way in the CRM industry. Being able to tie your Salesforce Contacts to that person’s LinkedIn profile is a valuable resource in learning more about customers, prospects, and other business related contacts.

When searching Salesforce’s AppExchange for apps related to ‘linkedin’, about a dozen are tied to LinkedIn in some way or another. A highly reviewed and free app that Collabrax chose was in|force Connector by Redkite. With this app you can view your contact’s LinkedIn profile directly within Salesforce Contact pages.

LinkedIn Profile in Salesforce Contacts

Installation of the in|force Connector only takes about 5-10 minutes and then you can be on your way to connecting LinkedIn profiles to Salesforce Contacts.

There are four primary steps:

Step 1 – Install App

Clicking Get It Now from the AppExchange listing begins the installation process into your instance of Salesforce. Follow the steps as defined in the deployment guide.

Step 2 – Get LinkedIn API Key

Because LinkedIn has limits on the number of times per day an application can make calls to its API — and this is controlled by the API key — each organization installing the in|force Connector must have its own API key. Go to www.linkedin.com/secure/developer to get your key. Again this is nicely described in the deployment guide.

Step 3 – Configure Connector

Once you have acquire the API key, switch to the in|force Connector App in Salesforce where you will be asked to enter the key. You will need the API Key and Secret Key. Enter those values then click save.

Step 4 – Add Connector to the Contact Layout Page

From the Salesforce Contact layout configuration page click on Visualforce Pages and you should see a new LinkedIn Profile widget. Start by dragging a new Section to the page, naming it LinkedIn Profile, as a container to hold the profile. Then drag the new LinkedIn Profile widget to your new Section and save the page layout.

Contact by contact, you are now ready to connect LinkedIn profiles to your Salesforce Contacts,

For questions about this process and any other Salesforce capabilities, contact Collabrax today.

Below is a step-by-step guide for the basics of setting this up for your business. You should have access to the following prior to beginning:

• Either you are a System Administrator for your Salesforce organization or you can get help from one.
• You are a webmaster for your company’s website or you can get help from one.
• Basic knowledge of HTML and CSS is helpful in making your web form look pretty.

STEP 1

To begin, navigate to Setup>App Setup>Customize>Leads>Web-to-Lead. When you click on Web-to-Lead you are brought to the below screen where you can begin setup. Setup includes editing Web-to-Lead settings and creating the Web-to-Lead form based upon the Lead fields you want in your form.

Salesforce Web-to-Lead Settings Page

STEP 2

Click on the Edit button to set the basic settings. Web-to-Lead Enabled must be checked in order for this feature to function. Then specify which Salesforce user will be the Default Lead Creator. When the Lead is created from a form being submitted on your website, this user will be set as the Lead owner. If however you have Assignment Rules enabled, the Lead owner may change based upon the criteria in your assignment rules. Finally, you should set a Default Response Template. This is a email template that is sent automatically to the person completing the web form based upon the email address they supply. Depending on the edition of Salesforce you have, you can use Auto-Response Rules to vary the email template that is sent depending on defined criteria.

STEP 3

Now that the settings are complete, it’s time to Create the Web-to-Lead From. The first step is to pick the fields you will be using in your web form. You can use standard and custom fields. All Available Fields are list and simply select the ones you want and click the Add arrow to move them to the Selected Fields list. Then you will want to specify the web page location the person with be taken once they submit your web form. This is often referred to as your “thank you” page.

Salesforce Web-to-Lead Form Builder

After you click Generate, you will be give the necessary HTML code to insert into your website. If you are not the webmaster for your website, give this code to someone that has access to edit it. The code includes basic instructions and debugging capabilities for testing. If everything is setup correctly you should be able to submit the form from your website and within a few minutes you will see a new Lead in your salesforce CRM.

If you are using WordPress to manage your website, try WordPress-to-Lead.

For questions about this process and any other Salesforce capabilities, contact Collabrax today.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae_DKNwK_ms

Some organizations would benefit from utilizing outsourced consulting experts to help IT needs and social marketing to get to know each other better. The bottom line, however, is that successful businesses need to be able to merge IT and enterprise social software.   These solutions are increasingly aligned to integrate and leverage traditional IT strengths with the best of the web and social marketing.

In today’s market, businesses can’t have meaningful and scalable social business strategies without a solid and accessible IT infrastructure.  Companies need to make that essential but, to date, rare connection between the IT infrastructure and the social media marketing drivers.  The natural progression is moving business toward cloud computing solutions and integration with aggressive social media marketing tools.

“This gets us poised for what happens next: The coming half-decade is going to be a tremendously important and exciting one in the business world as organizations look to fundamentally retool for the 21st century, an era that has quite different expectations and requirements around business and how it gets done,” said Dion Hinchcliffe, an internationally recognized business strategist.

An example of the impressive marriage between technology and social media: Salesforce.com’s expansion of Salesforce Chatter, a Facebook-style social networking platform for enterprise. And now AppExchange 2, the next generation of Salesforce.com’s enterprise app storefront, will includes a “ChatterExchange” for social networking business apps.  To stay one step ahead of the competition, Google is continually expanding and improving it’s Google Apps for Businessplatform.  Google’s web-based messaging and collaboration apps require no hardware or software and need minimal administration, creating tremendous time and cost savings for businesses.  Google is also developing it’s social platform, “Google Me,” which is expected to be introduced this fall.  The service will introduce what Google calls “a social layer” into its existing product base.

The business world will one day soon no longer begin and end its days in an email in-box, but on a “wall” that defines business process through social interaction.

This setup has the potential to change the way your start-up or smaller company does business. Consider these seven benefits:

1. Save Money – Cloud solutions are all about choices. You select the program and options you want, and pay a one-time fee or purchase services on a subscription basis. You save money because you don’t have to buy software packages with a lot of bulk your business will never use.
2. Storage Options that Grow with You – Small businesses just don’t need terabytes of storage. So, get access to extra space as you grow into it. For example, Dropbox is a storage solution that gives you access to your files from anywhere. You can get up to 2GB of storage for free. If you need more, 50GB and 100GB options are available for purchase.
3. Skilled Technical Support – If you are a little leery of getting started because you’re not a technical whiz, you needn’t be. Cloud computing companies offer customer support. It’s cheaper than hiring your own IT guy, and you get help from someone who specializes in the product instead of one person trying to keep up with the entire technology industry.
4. Nothing to Update – You don’t have to buy updated versions and waste time installing the upgrade yourself. As new products and enhancements are rolled out, you gain immediate access the next time you log on.
5. Access from Anywhere – Perhaps one of the most convenient features of cloud computing is that you and your employees can access your files, email, calendars, and programs via a secure login from anywhere you have an Internet connection. Desktop, laptop, and mobile devices are supported for most cloud computing programs.
6. Reduce Your Carbon Footprint – An added bonus of cloud computing is that it can reduce your carbon footprint when compared to traditional services.
7. Do Business Like the Big Guys – With professional bookkeeping, invoicing, calendar, time-tracking, and many other tools, you have all the resources the big guys do from the start. You can operate a profitable, professional business without ever looking like a fledgling start-up.

There are some benefits that Google Apps can offer a small business owner that not many people are aware of. When you use Google Apps instead of the traditional IT software most businesses use, you’re basically placing your data and workflow information in the internet cloud. Meaning, everything you need is accessible wherever you are as long as you have an internet connection.

Here’s are 7 benefits of Google Apps for your small business:

1. Proven cost savings
   Google’s web-based messaging and collaboration apps require no hardware or software and need minimal administration, creating tremendous time and cost savings for businesses.
2. 50 times more storage than the industry average
   Each employee gets 25 GB for email storage, so they can keep important messages and find them instantly with built-in Google search.
3. Mobile email, calendar and IM access
   With several options for accessing their information while on the go, employees can be productive with Google Apps even when they’re not at their desks.
4. 99.9% uptime reliability guarantee
   Google guarantees that Google Apps will be available at least 99.9% of the time, so your employees are more productive and so you can worry less about system downtime.
5. Information security and compliance
   When you trust your company’s information to Google, you can be confident that your critical information is safe and secure.
6. Full administrative and data control
   Administrators can deeply customize Google Apps to meet their technical, branding and business requirements.
7. Helpful 24/7 customer support
   Google Apps is highly reliable and easy to operate, but support is available for administrators should you need it.

The new themes are designed with all the bells and whistles, helping businesses attract more customers. You can use them to highlight your business information and easily update web copy. Plus, when it comes to blogging, you also have the ability to publish entries directly to your site’s home page or via a subfolder in your site’s navigation.

WordPress Benefits for Small Business

First of all, it’s free! Although your site may look similar in layout to the sites of other small business owners, there are still plenty of opportunities for customization. Because the sites are built on WordPress, they are also easy to set up and manage.

When it comes to site operation, flexibility and ease of use are two of the biggest benefits that come with the Salesforce WordPress themes. You’ll be able to build your site’s ranking through the search engine optimization (SEO) tools inherent in the WordPress platform. When search engines bring in more traffic to your site, you get more leads and more customers.

WordPress has been the go-to platform for individual bloggers for years because it is so easy to use. You can see just how easy it is to get going by watching these demo videos for the Turnkey and Green Stimulus themes:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHJIm-R9bFM

WordPress can also help you with customer relationship management. More than 50% of consumer use search engines to find what they need. Since your website is the first point of contact for many of your company’s leads, finding a low-cost, professionally designed site that is visually pleasing is win-win for your business.

Advantages over Traditional Webmaster or Host Provider

Small businesses are notorious for being short on two things: money and time. Having a well-coded site used to mean paying a webmaster to make updates each time you needed to upload an employee photo or make changes to your web copy.

The new WordPress themes offered by Salesforce change all that, allowing you to install the theme and make content changes yourself through a user-friendly interface. There is no need to know developer coding. In fact, most domain hosts are set up to make WordPress installs on you site super easy. Fatastico De Luxe is a widely-used application that lets you setup WordPress and other scripts in just a few clicks.

But Wait! There’s More: Salesforce Plugin

If your small business is using Salesforce to power customer relationship management, you can install the WordPress-to-Lead (similar to Salesforce Web-to-Lead feature) plugin on your WordPress-powered site. People who visit your site will be able to contact you directly through your website, and the lead information is automatically entered in your Salesforce CRM. That means you no longer have to copy and paste lead information into your account.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnMzkxPUIyc

Whether you use Salesforce to manage customer relations or not, this announcement is sure to make your life much simpler.

“A CRM system is only as valuable as the information it contains….”  Therefore, a good CRM must be well designed, tailored to your specific business,  and user friendly.  The system becomes the backbone of business operations. Whenever you answer a customer call, the system becomes your information center.  It allows anyone that answers the call to treat every customer as if they are the only one.  With a good CRM, firms can expect bigger profits and better cash flow.  The system tells you what’s been your most valuable business sources and where to concentrate marketing.  It lets you see previous issues and resolutions.  A successful system gives your business constancy and makes information your most valuable asset.

When the CRM solution is integrated properly with email and your accounting system, it becomes invaluable. Everyone has real-time access to data that matters.  CRM empowers companies to client-centric effectively and efficiently regardless of size.  Integration with an email client and document management capability allows you to have an almost complete contact record.  All your client notes, emails, and documents are in one place.  CRM solves reporting issues between accounting departments and sales and management personnel.  A CRM system that properly integrates the accounting package gives everyone visibility to the information they need when they need it.  There is substantial benefit  in generating timely sales and management reports with current information and being able to address your client questions and concerns immediately.

As you finalize your budget for 2011, keep in mind that CRM can provide competitive advantages in an uncertain economy.  Whether you are a small business just getting established or a well-staffed corporation, there are benefits to you and your clients by implementing an integrated CRM solution.

Foursquare Special Offer

The year-old social networking startup, Foursquare,  is an entertaining distraction where people “check-in” (Foursquare’s term), collect badges, and jockey to achieve the status of “mayor” for frequenting a location more than anyone else.

After using Foursquare for a couple months now, I have finally seen signs of the business world taking hold of the idea.  Over the weekend I was out and about and found myself checking into a location I have many times in the past.  However this time, prior to actually pushing the Check-In Here button, I noticed what I would call an ad appear in the upper right-hand corner of the screen on my iPhone.  The ad said, “Special Nearby”.  Selecting the ad took me to a new screen (shown left) entitled “Special Offer”.  You can see for yourself, but the offer read, “Welcome to Carrabbas.  Show that you’re the Mayor of Carrabba’s and enjoy a complimentary dessert with the purchase of an entree.  Grazie!”

I had read recently that Starbucks had tested Foursquare as a part of customer-loyalty program where after someone checks-in five times they receive the “Barista Badge”.  Whether it is a special badge, dessert or other reward, businesses should look to join the social media revolution as a means of boosting sales and awareness.  This approach by Carrabba’s puts a unique spin on the frequent shopper or punch card concept, however in this case they are using social networking, a GPS mobile device, and coupling it with one of the hot new crazes; Foursquare.

Facebook doesn’t call it a vanity URL though.  Instead they call it “Set a username for your Pages“.  You have to be the admin for the fan page and you have to have at least 25 fans.  Once you have met these two criteria, go to http://www.facebook.com/username and click the link for Set a username for your Pages.  A drop-down will appear with all the Pages where you are an Admin.  As long as you have 25 fans, you can check the availability of a username and map it to your Facebook Fan Page.  Note, you cannot change the username once set.  Facebook warns you of this during the process.

Collabrax’s vanity URL is facebook.com/Collabrax

• Search term – Similar to what you would type in a general Google search
• Type – News, Blog, Web, Comprehensive, Video, and Groups
• How often – as-it-happens, once a day, once a week
• Email length – up to 20 results or up to 50 results
• Your email – Email address where you want the results sent.

This is where the daily reading comes in.  Many of you frequent your favorite news sites online or perhaps have Readers setup that pull feeds from your favorite source on the Internet.  For me though, I found myself not disciplined enough to navigate to somewhere like cnn.com, msnbc.com, etc.. Nor did I find myself opening up a Reader regularly.  Instead, since I am already checking email hundreds of times everyday, setting up Google Alerts made the most sense.

For example, recently I wanted to learn more about foursquare and how it was becoming more than just a game.  So, I set a Google Alert for comprehensive, once a day, with up to 20 results.  What I learned and this is important, you will get your alerts at the same time every day and that time will correlate with when you setup the alert.  Since I like to do most of my reading in the mornings, I created the alert at 9:00a and I can count on an email everyday with the results of my search terms in that alert.

Now, I actually have about dozen alerts setup, all coming in the morning.  If one morning something comes up and I don’t get to my alert emails, I simply delete those emails because the next day, I will be getting more.  You can’t delete the alert at anytime from your Google Alert console.