So, this past week, salesforce.com released a new feature within their core application called “Social Contacts”. Those who happened to attend or watch Dreamforce this year know that the Social Enterprise and the social contacts function got some major airplay during the Keynote speech by salesforce.com CEO Mark Benioff (if you watch again, you can actually see me three different times in the first part of the keynote – I know because my kids counted…).
What is Social Contacts? Social Contacts “lets you view your contacts’ social network profiles directly in Salesforce. This social information gives you a better perspective on your customers’ needs and issues—information you can use to build deeper relationships and increase business connections” (from salesforce.com help page). In other words, when you turn this function on, you have quick and easy access to the public profile that your contact within Salesforce has allowed. What networks are available? To begin with, Salesforce has (for free) a Twitter and a Facebook link, and for a fee (this is actually LinkedIn’s AppExchange application and not an add-on fee from salesforce.com) you can utilize LinkedIn.
So, what happens after your administrator enables Social Contacts (for those who have an org that wasn’t created after October 7th, 2011)? First, you will notice that your contact page changes slightly. Up by the name is a new placeholder box for an image, much like we have become used to with Chatter (for those who don’t wish to add pictures in your org, I refer to you as the greyskins, in honour of Whitley Streiber). We also have three social network icons of which we have all become accustomed to.
Clicking on these icons brings you to a tab page where you can choose the person’s Facebook or Twitter profile, and after this see their latest tweets, their public Facebook profile, and have a quick link to open their actual Twitter or Facebook pages in a new tab (please note: I have not paid for the LinkedIn app, so I cannot comment on this portion). And, you can decide to add their Twitter or Facebook profile picture to their Salesforce contact. And that’s it. Yes, there is no integration, or pulling information (technically, Salesforce is using public API from Twitter and Facebook, so pulling information from these social networks would not be possible at this time, and to be honest, I think two way integration would end up costing), but it is a time saver.
How, you ask? Well, consider these points:
- Prior to Social Contacts, if I was on a contact’s detail page within Salesforce, and wondered what was up with them via Facebook or Twitter, I would have had to open a new window and go to Facebook, or flip over to my TweetDeck and search for the user (or open their URL). Now, I have one-click access to their recent Twitter stream (which is how I find myself talking to people more and more) AND can reply, view their Facebook profile, and open with one click (and in a new window). Now, I’m not sure about you all, but the moment I open either Facebook or Twitter, this massive, time sucking vortex is opened and the fifteen minutes I lost just moments ago can prove it. This is a massive time saver for me, as I can check when a contact last tweeted, and send them a reply to their last tweet, or open straight to their Facebook and reply and write on their Wall (now salesforce.com needs to close my Facebook window once I click the Submit button! LOL).
I love the simple addition of the Facebook or Twitter profile picture. I am a very visual person, and seeing something that reminds me of the actual contact (whether it be a nice picture like others have, or some weird kaleidoscope picture like I currently have) allows me to quickly remember who the person is I am currently viewing within Salesforce.- Especially with the Twitter aspect, being able to see and reply to a contact’s latest tweet, whether it be 10 seconds ago or 10 hours ago could be huge for someone maintaining a relationship with Salesforce contacts. Let’s put aside the fact that we all work trying to be successful, whether it be selling widgets, services, knowledge or advice. This is 2011, and the Mad Men ideal of a split between business and homestead is dead. You follow these people on Twitter or Facebook, so unless you have a completely separate corporate account (an idea I am both am philosophically against, and loathe like the plague), your contacts know that outside of work you may have a life (in my case, I am sure that any business contacts or colleagues who follow me on Twitter know of my love of my family, hockey, live music, and my mistrust of the current Conservative government of Canada along with my love of all things Salesforce). So, be a human. Reply with a personal remark to their child’s picture, or their latest tech gadget, or their tweet of an article. Make that conversation, strike up a personal report with the clients you deal with. Personally, your circle of friends and acquaintances grows, and professionally, people are more likely to remember you because you’ve made that personal connection.
4 Comments
Great post– I’m with you and in love with the idea and potential this brings. I just wish there was more communication about how it worked– I’ve blogged about my frustrations and only through trial and error and another helpful friend did I figure out why I could not find myself. No, wait, I still don’t know why I couldn’t find myself when I was logged in with my account (Don’t care about settings here, it’s the principle!). But the way it was promoted, especially with the requirement that users have their own account to access the services, sounded like it would be relatively easy to find folks. It is if you’re lucky and they have the right settings.
It’s got room to grow, and yes part of it all is that their hands are tied by the API’s provided by the services, but would have liked a little less overpromising until it was really robust.
I guess you saw things in the demo that I missed. While there was a tonne of information within the demo Dan Darcy gave, it shows multiple apps (such as the social media to case) that aren’t social contacts. So that could have caused some of the grey I have heard others talk about. Along with that, the release notes have always stated “view” as the power of social contacts, so I wasn’t thinking there’d be any integration between them as of yet. But yes – we definitely agree on the fact that it’s got some space to grow, and that is what I always look forward to with Salesforce.
Great! thanks for the share!