Review: Salesforce.com CRM Spring 11 Release

With new Chatter and Jigsaw integration, Salesforce.com has once again redefined online customer relationship management (CRM) with its Spring 11 release.

With so much attention focused on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, one wonders if Salesforce.com is at all worried about losing ground to Microsoft. The answer, according to Salesforce, is no. The company says that with Salesforce Chatter and Jigsaw, Salesforce.com has yet again redefined CRM, and Microsoft is still playing catch up.

“Microsoft CRM is doing the same for CRM that Zune did for digital music players; inferior product with no innovation so Microsoft tries to attack on price point,” Scott Holden, Salesforce senior director of product marketing, told eCRM Guide.

Competitive jockeying aside, the Spring 11 enterprise edition expands on Salesforce’s already successful cloud CRM platform and also includes Chatter integration and visible results of the company’s Jigsaw acquisition. In this eCRM Guide review, we look at the new features and discuss and how Salesforce.com users benefit from these integrated cloud service technologies.

Read: Salesforce.com CRM Spring 11 Release Reviewed
By Vangie Beal

Tips to Build a Relevant Twitter Following

We all know how cool it is to see a Twitter user with thousands of followers, but is that really the best way to approach Twitter marketing? A celebrity or well-known brand on Twitter is different than the average small business or individual looking to use Twitter for word-of-mouth marketing.

One method I use to build a Twitter list is to find the people who are active in the Twitter conversations related to my own main topic of discussion.  When I use Twitter I mainly tweet about ecommerce and technology, so I follow like-minded Twitter users. To find the most relevant users, I might search for #ecommerce, shopping carts and similar keywords.  When I spot Twitter users who send out interesting messages about these topics I follow them. In return when they view my Twitter profile and see we have many tweet topics in common, they are more likely to also follow me in return.

The reason behind using this method to build a Twitter list is simple. It’s one way to find the most relevant Twitter users in your own niche topic. From this group you can expect users to post things you will want to retweet – and in return your messages are also more likely to be retweeted.

You may not have an MC Hammer-sized twitter list, but a smaller more active and functional list from those within your niche topics will work better and help spread your Twitter messages to those who are interested in the topic of discussion.